This page describes an image Hercules Constellation Map
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Diagram caption:
The constellation Hercules with its bright stars and surrounding constellations. Hercules is surrounded by (going clockwise from the top): Draco, Boötes, Corona Borealis, Ophiuchus, Aquila, Sagitta, Vulpecula and Lyra.
Hercules is a large, northern constellation that covers a big range in declination. The whole constellation is visible at some point in the year in the whole northern hemisphere and in equatorial regions of the southern hemisphere. Parts of the constellation can be viewed from temperate and almost all antarctic regions of the southern hemisphere. Hercules is best viewed in the northern hemisphere summer and southern hemisphere winter.
The globular clusters M13 and M92 lie in Hercules and are marked here with yellow circles with plus signs superimposed on them.
The y-axis of this diagram is in degrees of declination with north as up and the x-axis is in hours of right ascension with east to the left. The sizes of the stars marked here relate to the star's apparent magnitude, a measure of its apparent brightness. The larger dots represent brighter stars. The Greek letters mark the brightest stars in the constellation. These are ranked by brightness with the brightest star being labeled alpha, the second brightest beta, etc., although this ordering is not always followed exactly. The dotted boundary lines mark the IAU's boundaries of the constellations and the solid green lines mark one of the common forms used to represent the figures of the constellations. Neither the constellation boundaries, nor the lines joining the stars appear on the sky.
Diagram credit: Adapted by the IAU Office of Astronomy for Education from the original by the IAU and Sky & Telescope. Credit Link
Diagram translation status: Not yet approved by a reviewer
Diagram translators: An automated transliteration from the simplified Chinese translation by -
Related glossary terms:
天球坐標
, 星座
, 球狀星團
, 視星等
, 赤經（RA）
, 赤緯
Categories:
Naked Eye Astronomy
Diagram license: Creative Commons 姓名標示 4.0 國際 (CC BY 4.0) Creative Commons 姓名標示 4.0 國際 (CC BY 4.0) icons
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