Musca Borealis (

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

for ''northern fly'') was a constellation, now discarded, located between the constellations of Aries and Perseus. It was originally called Apes (plural of Apis, Latin for bee) by

Petrus Plancius Petrus Plancius (; 1552 – 15 May 1622) was a Dutch-Flemish astronomer, cartographer and clergyman. He was born as Pieter Platevoet in Dranouter, now in Heuvelland, West Flanders. He studied theology in Germany and England. At the age of 24 he ...

when he created it in 1612. It was made up of a small group of stars, now called 33 Arietis,

35 Arietis 35 Arietis (abbreviated 35 Ari) is a binary star in the northern constellation of Aries. ''35 Arietis'' is the Flamsteed designation. It is approximately distant from the Earth, based upon an annual parallax shift of 9.51 mas. This ...

39 Arietis 39 Arietis (abbreviated 39 Ari), officially named Lilii Borea , is a star in the northern constellation of Aries. It is visible to the naked eye with an apparent visual magnitude of +4.5. The distance to this star, as determined from an ...

, and 41 Arietis, in the north of the constellation of Aries. The brightest star is now known as 41 Arietis (Bharani). At magnitude 3.63, it is a blue-white main sequence star of spectral type B8V around 166 light-years distant. 39 Arietis (Lilii Borea) is an orange giant star of magnitude 4.51 and spectral type K1.5III that is around 171 light-years distant. The constellation was renamed Vespa by Jakob Bartsch in 1624. The renaming by Bartsch may have been intended to avoid confusion with another constellation, created by Plancius in 1598, that was called Apis by Bayer in 1603. Plancius called this earlier constellation Muia (Greek for fly) in 1612, and it had been called Musca (Latin for fly) by Blaeu in 1602, although Bayer was evidently unaware of this. In 1679 Augustin Royer used these stars for his constellation Lilium (the Lily, representing the

fleur-de-lis The fleur-de-lis, also spelled fleur-de-lys (plural ''fleurs-de-lis'' or ''fleurs-de-lys''), is a lily (in French, and mean 'flower' and 'lily' respectively) that is used as a decorative design or symbol. The fleur-de-lis has been used in the ...

and in honour of his patron, King

Louis XIV , house = Bourbon , father = Louis XIII , mother = Anne of Austria , birth_date = , birth_place = Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France , death_date = , death_place = Palace of Ver ...

).Ian Ridpath ''Star Tales''
/ref> It was first described as "Musca" by

Hevelius Johannes Hevelius Some sources refer to Hevelius as Polish: * * * * * * * Some sources refer to Hevelius as German: * * * * *of the Royal Society * (in German also known as ''Hevel''; pl, Jan Heweliusz; – 28 January 1687) was a councillor ...

in his catalogue of 1690. Subsequent astronomers renamed it into "Musca Borealis", to distinguish it from the southern fly, Musca Australis. This constellation is no longer in use; the stars it contained are now included in Aries. The Southern Fly, Musca Australis, is now simply known as

Musca Musca () is a small constellation in the deep southern sky. It was one of 12 constellations created by Petrus Plancius from the observations of Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman, and it first appeared on a celestial globe in ...

References

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* {{Constellations/historic/obsolete Former constellations Constellations listed by Petrus Plancius Dutch celestial cartography in the Age of Discovery Astronomy in the Dutch Republic 1610s in the Dutch Republic zh:雀蜂座

See also

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