Constellations

A large serpent winding its way across the sky with a crow and water bucket on its back. This constellation is the largest in the sky.

Mythology

The Greek constellation of Hydra is an adaptation of a Babylonian constellation: the MUL.APIN includes a "serpent" constellation (MUL.DINGIR.MUŠ) that corresponds to Hydra. It is one of two Babylonian "serpent" constellations (the other being the origin of the Greek Serpens), a mythological hybrid of serpent, lion and bird.

The shape of Hydra resembles a twisting snake, and features as such in some Greek myths. One myth associates it with a water snake that a crow served Apollo in a cup when it was sent to fetch water; Apollo saw through the fraud, and angrily cast the crow, cup, and snake, into the sky. The Hydra is also associated with the Lemaean Hydra, or the water beast with seven heads, killed by Heracles as one of his Twelve Labors. This different story of the beast included the talent of when one of its heads was cut of two more would grow in its place. But this is depicted more in a separate constellation.

Other Notable Bodies

The constellation contains 3 Messier objects.

Messier 83 (NGC 5236), or the Southern Pinwheel Galaxy, (an intermediate spiral galaxy) approximately 15 million light-years away. Lies near the border between Hydra and Centaurus.

Messier 60 (NGC 4590) is a globular cluster about 33,000 light-years distant. It contains at least 42 known variable stars and about 250 giants, and is approaching us at 112 kilometers per second.

Messier 48 (NGC 2548) is an open star cluster lying near the border with the constellation Monoceros.

Pictures

http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/constellations/hydra.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/18/HydraCC.jpg

https://bobmoler.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/hydra_04-09-12-2200.png

Sources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydra_%28constellation%29

http://www.topastronomer.com/StarCharts/Constellations/Hydra.php

Star Myths of the Greeks and Romans By Theony Condos