Omicron1 Canis Majoris
variable star in the constellation Canis Major
Omicron1 Canis Majoris is a red supergiant star in the constellation Canis Major. Its name is a Bayer designation that is Latinized from ο1 Canis Majoris, and abbreviated Omicron1 CMa or ο1 CMa. This is a variable star that ranges in apparent visual magnitude from 3.78 to 3.99, which is bright enough to be viewed with the naked eye. It is located at a distance of approximately 2,700 light years, and is drifting further away with a line of sight velocity of +36 km/s.
Name
Johann Bayer gave two adjacent stars the Bayer designation of ο Canis Majoris in 1603, but without distinguishing between the stars. John Flamsteed gave the two omicron stars his own numbered designations of 16 and 24 Canis Majoris in the early 18th century. Friedrich Wilhelm Argelander labelled the stars as ο1 and ο2 in his atlas Uranometria Nova. Nicolas Louis de Lacaille labelled it c Canis Majoris, but this was not upheld by subsequent cartographers. Its Henry Draper Catalogue designation is HD 50877. The two Omicron stars marked the centre of the Great Dog's body on Bayer's 1603 Uranometria.
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This entry incorporates text from “Omicron1 Canis Majoris” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.