Quadrans Muralis ( Latin for ''

mural quadrant A mural instrument is an angle measuring instrument mounted on or built into a wall. For astronomical purposes, these walls were oriented so they lie precisely on the meridian. A mural instrument that measured angles from 0 to 90 degrees was cal ...

'') was a

constellation A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms Asterism (astronomy), a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object. The origins of the e ...

created by the French astronomer Jérôme Lalande in 1795. It depicted a wall-mounted quadrant with which he and his nephew Michel Lefrançois de Lalande had charted the celestial sphere, and was named Le Mural in the French atlas. It was between the constellations of

Boötes Boötes ( ) is a constellation in the northern sky, located between 0° and +60° declination, and 13 and 16 hours of right ascension on the celestial sphere. The name comes from la, Boōtēs, which comes from grc-gre, Βοώτης, Boṓtēs ...

and

Draco Draco is the Latin word for serpent or dragon. Draco or Drako may also refer to: People * Draco (lawgiver) (from Greek: Δράκων; 7th century BC), the first lawgiver of ancient Athens, Greece, from whom the term ''draconian'' is derived * D ...

, near the tail of Ursa Major, containing stars between β Bootis (Nekkar) and η Ursae Majoris (Alkaid). Johann Elert Bode converted its name to Latin as ''Quadrans Muralis'' and shrank the constellation a little in his 1801 ''Uranographia'' star atlas, to avoid it clashing with neighboring constellations. In 1922, Quadrans Muralis was omitted when the International Astronomical Union (IAU) formalised its list of officially recognized constellations.

Notable features

* The variable star BP Boötis was a member of the constellation. *

39 Boötis 39 Boötis is a triple star system located around 224 light years away from the Sun in the northern constellation of Boötes. It is visible to the naked eye as a faint, yellow-white hued star with a combined apparent magnitude of 5.6 ...

is a double star that was transferred by Lalande into Quadrans. * The Quadrantid

meteor shower A meteor shower is a celestial event in which a number of meteors are observed to radiate, or originate, from one point in the night sky. These meteors are caused by streams of cosmic debris called meteoroids entering Earth's atmosphere at extre ...

is still named after the obsolete constellation.

References

Former constellations {{astronomy-stub