This month I will be talking about nebulae and the constellation of Aquila.

Nebulae are huge shells of gas that are ejected from stars at the end of their lifetime. Our own sun will one day eject it's own planetary nebula. The name of planetary nebula refers to the round shape that many of these objects show when examined through a telescope.

The brightest nebula in our sky is the "Orion Nebula" which is visible to the naked eye and about 1,600 light years away. It's colourful and often very interesting for the amateur astronomer. It's believed to be less than a 1000 years old and is a cloud consisting of many turbulent gasses.

It's winter, and Orion is rising. Look to the east-southeast for the Hunter Constellation, south to the belt of three bright stars and you will be able to see the nebula.

Most of our star constellations have links to Ggreek Mythology and Aquila, the eagle, is one of them. The constellation is supposed to represent the eagle carrying away the youth that was picked to replace Hebe. Hebe had been the Goddess of Youth, but after her marriage, she gave up that post. Zeus then replaced her with Ganymede, a Trojan prince. "The Eagle" was Zeus Royal Eagle, Aquila, also referred to as the thunderbird.

Aquila also carried out punishments for Zeus, which is what killed him in the end, that is when Zeus decided to put him up in the stars for an eternal life.

The brightest star in Aquila is Altair, which at a distance of seventeen light years, shines with the light of eleven suns. Altair spins very rapidly, and due to that, has become deformed. It is thought that the stars equatorial diameter is twice it's polar diameter.

Next month the star constellation in focus will be Hydra!