The UFO Galaxy (NGC 2683) lies some 16 million light-years from Earth. It has the classic shape of
supposed extraterrestrial objects that terrified the uninformed throughout the 1950s. It shines at
magnitude 9.8 Credit: Adam Block/Mount Lemmon SkyCenter/University of Arizona
If you can’t immediately conjure up the position of the constellation Lynx, I understand. It’s not an iconic star figure like Orion or Scorpius. A good, reasoned guess would place it in the winter sky (because this story is in the January issue). But, in fact, about half of Lynx lies directly north of Cancer the Crab, and the rest of the star pattern sits between the Big Dipper’s bowl and the main part of Auriga the Charioteer. So you can observe it in the springtime, too.
Of the 88 constellations that cover the sky, Lynx ranks 28th in size but only 66th in overall brightness. It contains only one of the 200 brightest stars, and that one — magnitude 3.2 Alpha (α) Lyncis — barely makes the list at number 191.
