Taurus Tau
Taurus is one of the 88 constellations, covering 798 square degrees of the sky (17th largest). It is highest at midnight in November and best in the evening sky in December and January.
14 of its best-known objects have a page of their own here.
Facts
| Abbreviation | Tau |
|---|---|
| Size | 798 square degrees (17th largest of the 88; the full Moon covers about 0.2) |
| Middle (J2000) | 4h 24m, +17° |
| Highest at midnight | November (in the evening, around 8–10 pm: December and January) |
| How high | From India (about 20° N) its middle climbs to about 87° above the horizon; from 50° N, to about 57°. |
| Pages here | 14 objects |
Nebulae
6Star clusters
2Black holes, pulsars and other extreme objects
1Stars
4Other objects
1Brightest NGC and IC objects
OpenNGC| Object | Type | Magnitude | Size |
|---|---|---|---|
| M45 · Mel022 (Pleiades) | Open star cluster | 1.2 | 150′ |
| NGC 1746 (on the map) | Open star cluster | 6.1 | 18′ |
| NGC 1647 (on the map) | Open star cluster | 6.4 | 27′ |
| NGC 1807 (on the map) | Open star cluster | 7 | 5.4′ |
| NGC 1817 (on the map) | Open star cluster | 7.7 | 9.3′ |
| M1 · NGC 1952 (Crab Nebula) | Supernova remnant | 8.4 | 8′ |
| NGC 1555 (Hind's Nebula) | Reflection nebula | 10 | 1.8′ |
| NGC 1514 (on the map) | Planetary nebula | 10.2 | 2.2′ |
| NGC 1587 (on the map) | Galaxy | 11.7 | 2.1′ |
| NGC 1589 (on the map) | Galaxy | 11.8 | 3.1′ |
| NGC 1615 (on the map) | Galaxy | 12 | 1.4′ |
| NGC 1550 (on the map) | Galaxy | 12.1 | 1.7′ |
Smaller magnitudes are brighter; the faintest stars the eye sees are about 6. The full Moon is about 31′ across.
Data: IAU constellation boundaries (Roman 1987) · OpenNGC (Mattia Verga, CC BY-SA 4.0) · Data sources & credits