Hercules

Hercules is a Northern Hemisphere constellation otherwise known as the Hercules. It is one of the 48 Greek constellations originally described by the 2nd century astronomer Claudius Ptolemy (Wikipedia). Hercules remains one of the 88 modern constellations defined by the International Astronomical Union (Wikipedia).

Hercules (abbrev. = Her; genitive = Herculis) covers 1225 square degrees or 2.97% of the celestial sphere making it the 5th largest constellation. It contains 245 stars brighter than apparent magnitude 6.5, the brightest star being Kornephoros. See the Hercules Star Chart for a figure illustrating this constellation including the identification of its brighter stars.

For more information see the entries for Hercules at Wikipedia and U. Wisconsin. For a chart of Hercules, see Her (IAU).

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