Draco, an ancient constellation, represents Ladon, the dragon which guarded the garden of the Hesperides, the Daughters of the Evening who lived in the far west. Hercules (as one of his twelve tasks) was told to steal their golden apples (which may have in fact been oranges) and killed Ladon in order to do so. Just as Ladon was coiled round the tree bearing the golden apples, he is now coiled round the north celestial pole. He also separates the two bears, Ursa Major and Ursa Minor. Hercules’ foot stands on the dragon’s head.   

Draco is a large constellation and although only one star (Eltanin or Gamma Draconis) is second magnitude, five are third magnitude. Yet it is difficult to make out, partly because it is long and thin, and partly because it is coiled round other constellations. The most obvious feature of Draco is its head, made up of four stars - in clockwise order from the brightest: Eltanin (mag. 2.2); Grumium (3.7, Xi Draconis); Nu Draconis which is also called Kuma, a non-IAU name (4.9); and Rastaban (2.8, Beta Draconis). The only other interesting star in Draco is Thuban (mag. 3.7, Alpha Draconis), which was the Pole Star during the time of the Ancient Egyptians (the fourth and third millennia BC) and at one point was only 10 arcminutes from the pole. Draco has an unusually large number of named stars, only some of which are shown in the above chart.

There is one notable deep-sky object in Draco: the Cat’s Eye Nebula [1] (NGC 6543, Caldwell 6). This is a planetary nebula which is fairly difficult to see in a small telescope. It was discovered by William Herschel in 1786 and was the first planetary nebula to have its spectrum captured by William Huggins, in 1864.

However, Draco contains a number of good doubles. Nu Draconis is a wide pair of equally bright white stars (mag. 4.9). Nearby Alrakis (Mu Draconis) [2] is a rather tight pair of equally bright yellow stars (mag. 5.7). 17 Draconis [3] (mag. 5.4) forms a tight double with one bright star (mag. 6.4) and a very wide double with another one of almost equal brightness, which is 16 Draconis (mag. 5.5). The stars are all more or less white. Dziban (Psi Draconis) is a nicely wide pair of yellow stars (mag. 4.6 and 5.6). 41 Draconis [4] (mag. 5.7) forms a fairly close pair with the almost equally bright 40 Draconis (mag. 6.0); they are both yellow. Finally, Epsilon Draconis, informally called Tyl (mag. 4.0) is a rather tight double with a fainter companion (mag. 6.9); they are yellow and purplish-blue.

The above four images are schematic representations