Characteristics
A dark area of the sky with a triangle of brighter stars just visible to the naked eye in good conditions, Leo Minor has been described by Patrick Moore as having "dubious claims to a separate identity". It is a small constellation bordered by Ursa Major to the north, Lynx to the west, Leo to the south, and touching the corner of Cancer to the southwest. The three-letter abbreviation for the constellation, as adopted by the International Astronomical Union in 1922, is 'LMi'. The official constellation boundaries, as set by Eugène Delporte in 1930, are defined by a polygon of 16 sides. In the equatorial coordinate system, the right ascension coordinates of these borders lie between 9h 22.4m and 11h 06.5m, while the declination coordinates are between 22.84° and 41.43°. Ranked 64th out of 88 constellations in size, Leo Minor covers an area of 232.0 square degrees, or 0.562 percent of the sky. It culminates each year at midnight on February 24, and at 9 p.m. on May 24.
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