A square degree (deg) is a non-SI unit measure of solid angle. Other denotations include sq. deg. and (°). Just as degrees are used to measure parts of a circle, square degrees are used to measure parts of a sphere.
Analogous to one degree being equal to π/180 radians, a square degree is equal to (π/180) steradians (sr), or about 1/3283 sr or about 3.046×10 sr.The whole sphere has a solid angle of 4πsr which is approximately 41253 deg:
Andromeda is one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd-century Greco-Roman astronomer Ptolemy, and one of the 88 modern constellations. Located in the northern celestial hemisphere, it is named for Andromeda, daughter of Cassiopeia, in the Greek myth, who was chained to a rock to be eaten by the sea monster Cetus. Andromeda is most prominent during autumn evenings in the Northern Hemisphere, along with several other constellations named for characters in the Perseus myth. Because of its northern declination, Andromeda is visible only north of 40° south latitude; for observers farther south, it always lies below the horizon. It is one of the largest constellations, with an area of 722 square degrees. This is over 1,400 times the size of the full moon, 55% of the size of the largest constellation, Hydra, and over 10 times the size of the smallest constellation, Crux.
Its brightest star, Alpheratz (Alpha Andromedae), is a binary star that has also been counted as a part of Pegasus, while Gamma Andromedae (Almach) is a colorful binary and a popular target for amateur astronomers. With a variable brightness similar to Alpheratz, Mirach (Beta Andromedae) is a red giant, its color visible to the naked eye. The constellation's most obvious deep-sky object is the naked-eye Andromeda Galaxy (M31, also called the Great Galaxy of Andromeda), the closest spiral galaxy to the Milky Way and one of the brightest Messier objects. Several fainter galaxies, including M31's companions M110 and M32, as well as the more distant NGC 891, lie within Andromeda. The Blue Snowball Nebula, a planetary nebula, is visible in a telescope as a blue circular object.
In geometry, a solid angle (symbol: Ω) is a measure of the amount of the field of view from some particular point that a given object covers. That is, it is a measure of how large the object appears to an observer looking from that point.The point from which the object is viewed is called the apex of the solid angle, and the object is said to subtend its solid angle at that point.
In the International System of Units (SI), a solid angle is expressed in a dimensionless unit called a steradian (symbol: sr), which is equal to one square radian, sr = rad. One steradian corresponds to one unit of area (of any shape) on the unit sphere surrounding the apex, so an object that blocks all rays from the apex would cover a number of steradians equal to the total surface area of the unit sphere, . Solid angles can also be measured in squares of angular measures such as degrees, minutes, and seconds.
Cancer is one of the twelve constellations of the zodiac and is located in the Northern celestial hemisphere. Its name is Latin for crab and it is commonly represented as one. Cancer is a medium-size constellation with an area of 506 square degrees and its stars are rather faint, its brightest star Beta Cancri having an apparent magnitude of 3.5. It contains ten stars with known planets, including 55 Cancri, which has five: one super-Earth and four gas giants, one of which is in the habitable zone and as such has expected temperatures similar to Earth. At the (angular) heart of this sector of our celestial sphere is Praesepe (Messier 44), one of the closest open clusters to Earth and a popular target for amateur astronomers.
The Deep Ecliptic Survey (DES) is a project to find Kuiper belt objects (KBOs), using the facilities of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO). The principal investigator is Robert L. Millis.
Since 1998 through the end of 2003, the survey covered 550 square degrees with sensitivity of 22.5, which means an estimated 50% of objects of this magnitude have been found.
The International Astronomical Union (IAU) designates 88 constellations of stars. In the table below, they are ranked by the solid angle that they subtend in the sky, measured in square degrees and millisteradians.
These solid angles depend on arbitrary boundaries between the constellations: the list below is based on constellation boundaries drawn up by Eugène Delporte in 1930 on behalf of the IAU and published in Délimitation scientifique des constellations (Cambridge University Press). Before Delporte's work, there was no standard list of the boundaries of each constellation.
