Canes Venatici
What is Canes Venatici?
Constellations· Spring evenings (N) · two stars under the Big Dipper's handle. Two hunting dogs chasing the Great Bear beneath the Dipper's handle. Only two stars to speak of, yet it is a telescope favourite: the Whirlpool Galaxy M51, the Sunflower M63, the globular M3 and more. Look below the Big Dipper in the Sky view.
📍 Visible from where you are right now — computed in your browser
bearing · altitude · rise time · best time tonight
Where Canes Venatici is in your sky right now: https://nowsky.org/solar/sky?sel=con:Canes Venatici — location and time set automatically, no login.
Stars of the figure
| Star | Magnitude |
|---|---|
| Cor Caroli | 2.9 |
The 1 brightest of the 2 stars used in the figure (1 lines). Lower magnitude means brighter.
Constellation basics
| Season | spring evenings (N) |
|---|---|
| Brightest star | Cor Caroli (α, 2.9) |
| How to find | just below the Dipper's handle |
| Area rank | 88 |
Figures are representative approximations. Source: compiled from NASA and IAU public data.
Frequently asked
- When can I see Canes Venatici?
- spring evenings (N).
- How do I find Canes Venatici?
- just below the Dipper's handle.
- What is the brightest star in Canes Venatici?
- Cor Caroli, magnitude 2.9.
- Where is Canes Venatici in the sky right now?
- Open the sky view for your location and time and it shows the position in the sky right now.
Charles's Heart is a magnet
Cor Caroli, the chief star of Canes Venatici, is the representative of strongly magnetic stars. Its surface field is thousands of times the Sun's, and the field herds particular elements toward the poles or equator of the star's atmosphere, patching its surface. As the star turns once every 5.47 days and the patches come and go, brightness and spectrum change together. Such stars are called Alpha² Canum Venaticorum variables, and this one is their prototype.
In its spectrum the lines of silicon, europium and chromium strengthen and weaken in step with the rotation, meaning the elements are not mixed evenly but gathered where the field puts them, one of the first cases in which a surface map of a chemically peculiar star was drawn. The 3rd-magnitude star below the Dipper on spring evenings is a pretty double in a telescope and a spinning magnet in a spectrograph.
The constellation in depth
Canes Venatici was introduced by Hevelius in 1687: two dogs, Asterion and Chara, held on a leash by Boötes as he drives the Great Bear across the sky. In Ptolemy's day these were merely faint stars of Ursa Major; Hevelius drew the hounds over them and the figure stuck.
Cor Caroli — "Charles's Heart", named for King Charles II of England — is a double star that small telescopes split. The constellation is unusually rich in galaxies: near the Dipper's last star, M51 the Whirlpool was the first galaxy in which spiral arms were recognised, and M63 the Sunflower, M94, M106 and the superb globular M3 are all staple small-telescope targets. Y Canum Venaticorum, "La Superba", is one of the reddest stars in the sky.
On April–June evenings, look about 10 degrees below the bend of the Big Dipper's handle for the pair Cor Caroli and Chara. At around 3rd magnitude they show even from town. Turn on "More objects" in the Sky view to see where M51 and M63 lie.
Related
Figures are representative approximations. Simulated positions use J2000 mean elements.