How many stars make up the constelation of cancer?

Answer 1

Five. They are commonly referred to as "alpha cancri", "beta cancri" and so on with gamma, delta and iota. The stars of constellations are often designated with Greek letters and the posessive form of the Latin name, so "alpha cancri" means "Alpha of Cancer". Some stars also have individual names, often drawn from the work of early Arab astronomers.

Alpha Cancri is also known as Acubens, Al Zubanah ("The Claws") or Sertan ("The Crab").

Beta Cancri is known as Tarf, ("The eye")

Gamma Cancri as Asellus Borealis ("The Northern ***", hey, they don't all make sense)

Delta Cancri as Asellus Australis ("The Southern ***", these are donkey-type asses, not butts)

and finally Iota Cancri doesn't have a given name, being pretty dim, but it's a binary star.

(Heh, I notice that Yahoo Answers blanks out the three-letter word starting with A that means donkey)

Answer 2

The traditional stick figure depiction of Cancer includes four or five stars of about fourth magnitude. In astronomical usage, though, a constellation is a defined region of sky, and Cancer, like any such region, is full of stars and galaxies. The Night Sky Observers Guide lists nineteen galaxies in the constellation.

Its most conspicuous feature is the star cluster M44, also known as the Beehive Cluster or the Praesepe. This cluster appears as a fuzzy spot to the naked eye, and will show maybe three dozen stars in binoculars. A large telescope will show several hundred. Cancer also contains another bright open cluster, M67.

Answer 3

Do you mean a nebula according to the modern definition? In the old days, anything that could not be resolved as individual stars was called a nebula (small distant clusters, galaxies, and of course nebulae -- emission, planetary or reflection). old style: Some of the best known "non-stellar" objects are: (NGC = New General Catalog; M = Messier) NGC 2545: a spiral galaxy NGC 2608: a spiral galaxy NGC 2623: three colliding galaxies! (with antennae) NGC 2632 = M44 An open star cluster NGC 2672: an elliptical galaxy, probably interacting with NGC 2673 NGC 2682 = M67, an open star cluster NGC 2749 a galaxy close to two other fainter galaxies NGC 2764 a galaxy, maybe an ellongated elliptical NGC 2775 a spiral galaxy with a smooth bulge (a peculiar combination) --- I just scanned the constellation in Starry Night (a "planetarium" program), down to the level of the IC (16th magnitude) and I stopped counting after 70 galaxies inside Cancer -- just inside the Beehive cluster, there are 4 galaxies. The Beehive cluster is inside our own galaxy. These other galaxies arevery far away -- no connection with the cluster other than being in the same direction. Not a single nebula

Answer 4

Alot.