Leo Minor
What is Leo Minor?
Constellations· Spring evenings (N) · faint triangle between Leo and Ursa Major. A little lion filling the narrow gap above Leo and below Ursa Major. Hevelius created it in 1687 with no myth attached. One of the few constellations without an alpha star — its brightest is 46 Leonis Minoris, Praecipua. Zoom in north of Leo in the Sky view.
📍 Visible from where you are right now — computed in your browser
bearing · altitude · rise time · best time tonight
Where Leo Minor is in your sky right now: https://nowsky.org/solar/sky?sel=con:Leo Minor — location and time set automatically, no login.
Stars of the figure
| Star | Magnitude |
|---|---|
| Praecipua | 3.8 |
The 1 brightest of the 4 stars used in the figure (3 lines). Lower magnitude means brighter.
Deep-sky objects near this constellation
Constellation basics
| Season | spring evenings (N) |
|---|---|
| Brightest star | Praecipua (46 LMi, 3.8) |
| How to find | above Leo's head, below the Bear's front paws |
| Area rank | 88 |
Figures are representative approximations. Source: compiled from NASA and IAU public data.
Frequently asked
- When can I see Leo Minor?
- spring evenings (N).
- How do I find Leo Minor?
- above Leo's head, below the Bear's front paws.
- What is the brightest star in Leo Minor?
- Praecipua, magnitude 3.8.
- Where is Leo Minor in the sky right now?
- Open the sky view for your location and time and it shows the position in the sky right now.
The green blob a schoolteacher found — Hanny's Voorwerp
In 2007 Hanny van Arkel, a schoolteacher in the Netherlands, was classifying galaxy images for the citizen-science project Galaxy Zoo when she noticed a green blob beside the spiral galaxy IC 2497 in Leo Minor. Named Hanny's Voorwerp, Dutch for Hanny's object, it turned out to be a cloud of gas ionised by intense light that the black hole at the neighbouring galaxy's centre had emitted in the past; the green is the glow of ionised oxygen.
The intriguing part is that IC 2497's black hole is quiet now. The light illuminating the cloud left tens of thousands of years ago, so the object is read as a light echo showing that the black hole switched off only recently. It is a leading example of a member of the public finding what professionals had missed, and it came from the sky of a small constellation with neither myth nor bright star.
The constellation in depth
Leo Minor was introduced in 1687 by Johannes Hevelius of Poland to fill the empty sky between Leo and Ursa Major; he wrote that these stars "shared the nature of the lion and the bear". It has no ancient myth, but its position makes it a natural companion when learning the big spring constellations.
It is one of the few constellations with no alpha star: when Francis Baily assigned Greek letters in the 19th century he accidentally skipped its brightest member, which is therefore known by its Flamsteed number, 46 Leonis Minoris, and the name Praecipua — Latin for "chief". Small telescopes reach the spirals NGC 3344 and NGC 3432, and "Hanny's Voorwerp", found by citizen scientists in 2007, lies in this direction.
On March–May evenings, look in the narrow strip between the Sickle of Leo and the front paws of the Great Bear for three or four 4th-magnitude stars forming a flat triangle. It is hard to see from a city, so enable constellation lines in the Sky view and zoom in north of Leo to learn where it sits.
Related
Figures are representative approximations. Simulated positions use J2000 mean elements.