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Octans
Octans is a faint constellation located in the deep southern celestial hemisphere, Southern Sky. Its name is Latin for the eighth part of a circle, but it is named after the octant (instrument), octant, a navigational instrument. Devised by kingdom of France, French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille in 1752, Octans remains one of the IAU designated constellations, 88 modern constellations. The southern celestial pole is located within the boundaries of Octans. History and mythology Octans was one of 14 constellations created by French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille during his expedition to the Cape of Good Hope, and was originally named ''l’Octans de Reflexion'' (“the reflecting octant”) in 1752, after he had observed and catalogued almost 10,000 southern stars during a two-year stay at the Cape of Good Hope. He devised fourteen new constellations in uncharted regions of the Southern Celestial Hemisphere not visible from Europe. All but one honoured instruments that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nu Octantis
ν Octantis, Romanization of Greek, Latinised as Nu Octantis, is a binary star in the constellation of Octans. Unusually for having such a late greek letter in its name, it is the brightest star in this faint constellation at apparent magnitude +3.7. It is located at from Earth, and is moving away at a radial velocity of +34.4 km/s. The system has an exoplanet orbiting halfway between both stars. Characteristics This is a spectroscopic binary system, meaning the binarity was inferred from periodic Doppler shifts in the spectral lines, which correspond to the motion of the stars. Both stars take to complete an orbit around each other, being separated by a semi-major axis of 2.61 astronomical units at a somewhat elliptical orbit. The primary has a spectral type of K1IV, with the luminosity class IV indicating that it is a subgiant star that has nuclear fusion, fused up all the hydrogen at its core and has expanded. Nu Octantis A has 1.57 times the mass of the Sun, b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apus
Apus is a small constellation in the Southern Celestial Hemisphere, southern sky. It represents a bird-of-paradise, and its name means "without feet" in Greek language, Greek because the bird-of-paradise was once wrongly believed to lack feet. First depicted on a celestial globe by Petrus Plancius in 1598, it was charted on a star atlas by Johann Bayer in his 1603 ''Uranometria''. The French explorer and astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille charted and gave the brighter stars their Bayer designations in 1756. The five brightest stars are all reddish in hue. Shading the others at apparent magnitude 3.8 is Alpha Apodis, an orange giant that has around 48 times the diameter and 928 times the luminosity of the Sun. Marginally fainter is Gamma Apodis, another aging giant star. Delta Apodis is a double star, the two components of which are 103 Minute and second of arc, arcseconds apart and visible with the naked eye. Two star systems have been found to have exoplanet, planets. Histo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mensa (constellation)
Mensa is a constellation in the Southern Celestial Hemisphere near the south celestial pole, one of fourteen constellations drawn up in the 18th century by French astronomer Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille. Its name is Latin for table, though it originally commemorated Table Mountain and was known as "Mons Mensae". One of the IAU designated constellations, eighty-eight constellations designated by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), it covers a Keystone (architecture), keystone-shaped wedge of sky 153.5 square degrees in area. Other than the south polar constellation of Octans, it is the most southerly of constellations and is observable only south of the 5th parallel north, 5th parallel of the Northern hemisphere, Northern Hemisphere. One of the faintest constellations in the night sky, Mensa contains no apparently bright stars—the brightest, Alpha Mensae, is barely visible in suburban skies. Part of the Large Magellanic Cloud, several star clusters and a quasar lie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tucana
Tucana (The Toucan) is a constellation in the southern sky, named after the toucan, a South American bird. It is one of twelve constellations conceived in the late sixteenth century by Petrus Plancius from the observations of Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman. Tucana first appeared on a celestial globe published in 1598 in Amsterdam by Plancius and Jodocus Hondius and was depicted in Johann Bayer's star atlas ''Uranometria'' of 1603. French explorer and astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille gave its stars Bayer designations in 1756. The constellations Tucana, Grus (constellation), Grus, Phoenix (constellation), Phoenix and Pavo (constellation), Pavo are collectively known as the "Southern Birds". Tucana is not a prominent constellation as all of List of stars in Tucana, its stars are third magnitude or fainter; the brightest is Alpha Tucanae with an apparent magnitude, apparent visual magnitude of 2.87. Beta Tucanae is a star system with six member stars, while Ka ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pavo (constellation)
Pavo is a constellation in the Southern Celestial Hemisphere, southern sky whose name is Latin for . Pavo first appeared on a 35-cm (14 in) diameter celestial globe published in 1598 in Amsterdam by Petrus Plancius and Jodocus Hondius and was depicted in Johann Bayer's star atlas ''Uranometria'' of 1603, and was likely conceived by Plancius from the observations of Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman. French explorer and astronomer Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille gave its stars Bayer designations in 1756. The constellations Pavo, Grus (constellation), Grus, Phoenix (constellation), Phoenix and Tucana are collectively known as the "Southern Birds". The constellation's brightest member, Alpha Pavonis, is also known as Peacock and appears as a 1.91-Apparent magnitude, magnitude blue-white star, but is actually a spectroscopic binary. Delta Pavonis is a nearby Sun-like star some 19.9 light-years distant. Six of the star systems in Pavo have been found to host planets, inc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hydrus
Hydrus is a small constellation in the deep Southern Celestial Hemisphere, southern sky. It was one of twelve constellations created by Petrus Plancius from the observations of Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman and it first appeared on a 35-cm (14 in) diameter celestial globe published in late 1597 (or early 1598) in Amsterdam by Plancius and Jodocus Hondius. The first depiction of this constellation in a celestial atlas was in Johann Bayer's Uranometria of 1603. The French explorer and astronomer Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille, Nicolas Louis de Lacaille charted the brighter stars and gave their Bayer designations in 1756. Its name means "male water snake", as opposed to Hydra (constellation), Hydra, a much larger constellation that represents a female water snake. It remains below the horizon for most Northern Hemisphere observers. The brightest star is the 2.8-apparent magnitude, magnitude Beta Hydri, also the closest reasonably bright star to the pole star#S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Celestial Pole
The north and south celestial poles are the two points in the sky where Earth's axis of rotation, indefinitely extended, intersects the celestial sphere. The north and south celestial poles appear permanently directly overhead to observers at Earth's North Pole and South Pole, respectively. As Earth spins on its axis, the two celestial poles remain fixed in the sky, and all other celestial points appear to rotate around them, completing one circuit per day (strictly, per sidereal day). The celestial poles are also the poles of the celestial equatorial coordinate system, meaning they have declinations of +90 degrees and −90 degrees (for the north and south celestial poles, respectively). Despite their apparently fixed positions, the celestial poles in the long term do not actually remain permanently fixed against the background of the stars. Because of a phenomenon known as the precession of the equinoxes, the poles trace out circles on the celestial sphere, with a period ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Horologium (constellation)
Horologium (Latin , the pendulum clock, from Ancient Greek, Greek , ) is a constellation of six stars faintly visible in the southern celestial hemisphere. It was first described by the French astronomer Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille in 1756 and visualized by him as a clock with a pendulum and a second hand. In 1922 the constellation was redefined by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) as a region of the celestial sphere containing Lacaille's stars, and has since been an IAU designated constellations, IAU designated constellation. Horologium's associated region is wholly visible to observers south of 23rd parallel north, 23°N. The constellation's brightest star—and the only one brighter than an apparent magnitude of 4—is Alpha Horologii (at 3.85), an aging orange giant star that has swollen to around 11 times the diameter of the Sun. The Mira variable, long-period variable-brightness star, R Horologii (4.7 to 14.3), has one of the largest variations in brightness among al ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Southern Celestial Hemisphere
The southern celestial hemisphere, also called the Southern Sky, is the Southern Hemisphere, southern half of the celestial sphere; that is, it lies south of the celestial equator. This arbitrary sphere, on which seemingly fixed stars form constellations, diurnal motion, appears to rotate westward around a celestial pole, polar axis as the Earth Earth's rotation, rotates. At all times, the entire Southern Sky is visible from the geographic South Pole; less of the Southern Sky is visible the latitude, further north the observer is located. The northern counterpart is the northern celestial hemisphere. Astronomy In the context of astronomical discussions or writing about celestial cartography, celestial mapping, it may also simply then be referred to as the Southern Hemisphere. For the purpose of celestial mapping, the sky is considered by Astronomer, astronomers as the inside of a sphere divided in two halves by the celestial equator. The Southern Sky or Southern Hemisphere ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nicolas Louis De Lacaille
Abbé Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille (; 15 March 171321 March 1762), formerly sometimes spelled de la Caille, was a French astronomer and geodesist who named 14 out of the 88 constellations. From 1750 to 1754, he studied the sky at the Cape of Good Hope in present-day South Africa. Lacaille observed over 10,000 stars using a refracting telescope. Biography Born at Rumigny in the Ardennes in eastern France, he attended school in Mantes-sur-Seine (now Mantes-la-Jolie). Afterwards, he studied rhetoric and philosophy at the Collège de Lisieux and then theology at the Collège de Navarre. He was left destitute in 1731 by the death of his father, who had held a post in the household of the duchess of Vendôme. However, he was supported in his studies by the Duc de Bourbon, his father's former patron. After he graduated, he did not accept ordination as a priest but took deacon's orders, becoming an Abbé. He concentrated thereafter on science, and, through the patronage of Jacques ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Southern Celestial Hemisphere
The southern celestial hemisphere, also called the Southern Sky, is the Southern Hemisphere, southern half of the celestial sphere; that is, it lies south of the celestial equator. This arbitrary sphere, on which seemingly fixed stars form constellations, diurnal motion, appears to rotate westward around a celestial pole, polar axis as the Earth Earth's rotation, rotates. At all times, the entire Southern Sky is visible from the geographic South Pole; less of the Southern Sky is visible the latitude, further north the observer is located. The northern counterpart is the northern celestial hemisphere. Astronomy In the context of astronomical discussions or writing about celestial cartography, celestial mapping, it may also simply then be referred to as the Southern Hemisphere. For the purpose of celestial mapping, the sky is considered by Astronomer, astronomers as the inside of a sphere divided in two halves by the celestial equator. The Southern Sky or Southern Hemisphere ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
La Caille Family
Constellation families are collections of constellations sharing some defining characteristic, such as proximity on the celestial sphere, common historical origin, or common mythological theme. In the Western tradition, most of the northern constellations stem from Ptolemy's list in the ''Almagest'' (which in turn has roots that go back to Mesopotamian astronomy), and most of the far southern constellations were introduced by sailors and astronomers who traveled to the south in the 16th to 18th centuries. Separate traditions arose in India and China. Menzel's families Donald H. Menzel, director of the Harvard Observatory, gathered several traditional groups in his popular account, ''A Field Guide to the Stars and Planets'' (1975), and adjusted and regularized them so that his handful of groups covered all 88 of the modern constellations. Of these families, one (Zodiac) straddles the ecliptic which divides the sky into north and south; one (Hercules) has nearly equal por ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
