starquality Blog

• Volans: The Flying Fish

  How Dutch navigators named Volans for a flying fish in the 1590s, its two brightest stars Gamma and Beta Volantis, and the distorted Meathook Galaxy inside it.

• Vela: The Sails

  Why Vela has no Alpha or Beta star, its two brightest stars Gamma and Delta Velorum, the Vela Supernova Remnant, and the Eight-Burst and Gum nebulae inside it.

• Tucana: The Toucan

  Tucana's origin from 1590s Dutch voyages, its lone bright star, and why it holds most of the Small Magellanic Cloud alongside the globular cluster 47 Tucanae.

• Triangulum Australe: The Southern Triangle

  The Southern Triangle's origin in the 1590s Dutch survey, its lone bright star Atria, how it compares to the older northern Triangulum, and when to find it.

• Telescopium: The Telescope

  Why Telescopium exists, how it got trimmed down from Lacaille's original size, its one named star Alpha Telescopii, and where to find it near Sagittarius.

• Scutum: The Shield

  How Hevelius named Scutum for King John III Sobieski's 1683 victory, its lone star Alpha Scuti, and the Wild Duck Cluster it holds in a bright stretch of Milky Way.

• Sculptor: The Sculptor

  Sculptor's origin as Lacaille's sculptor's studio, why it holds the south galactic pole, and its three showpiece galaxies including the Sculptor Galaxy and the Cartwheel.

• Reticulum: The Reticle

  What Reticulum is, why Lacaille named it for his telescope's crosshair grid in the 1750s, its two brightest stars, the Topsy-Turvy Galaxy, and when to look for it.

• Pyxis: The Mariner's Compass

  Pyxis, Lacaille's mariner's compass, its lone star Alpha Pyxidis, and the recurrent nova T Pyxidis that flares roughly every few decades in the same spot.

• Puppis: The Stern

  Puppis, the stern-section piece of the ancient ship Argo Navis, its supergiant stars Naos and Ahadi, and why it has no Alpha or Beta star of its own.

• Piscis Austrinus: The Southern Fish

  Fomalhaut, the mouth-of-the-fish star at the heart of Piscis Austrinus, its Greco-Roman and Babylonian history, and why it stands nearly alone in a dark patch of sky.

• Pictor: The Painter's Easel

  Pictor's two named stars, the radio galaxy Pictor A firing a jet toward Earth, and why Beta Pictoris and its imaged exoplanet make this faint Lacaille constellation worth finding.

• Phoenix: The Phoenix

  Phoenix's star Ankaa, the interacting galaxy group Robert's Quartet, and why this southern firebird was named by Dutch navigators with no classical legend.

• Pavo: The Peacock

  Pavo's lead star Peacock, the globular cluster NGC 6752, the Milky Way lookalike galaxy NGC 6744, and the Dutch navigators who charted this southern bird.

• Octans: The Octant

  Octans holds the south celestial pole and its faint pole star Sigma Octantis, named by Lacaille for the navigator's octant, with no classical myth attached.

• Norma: The Level (The Set Square)

  Norma's three named stars, the Great Attractor lying near its border, and why this Lacaille instrument lost its own Alpha and Beta to Scorpius.

• Musca: The Fly

  Musca explained — how it started life as a bee, its three brightest stars, and the Dark Doodad Nebula that threads across it near the Southern Cross.

• Microscopium: The Microscope

  Microscopium explained — its three faint stars, its 18th-century naming after the microscope, and why it holds no star brighter than fifth magnitude.

• Mensa: The Table (Table Mountain)

  Mensa explained — why its brightest star is the faintest of any constellation, and how Lacaille named it after Cape Town's Table Mountain and the cloud over it.

• Lupus: The Wolf

  Lupus explained — why the Greeks called it simply "the beast," the Babylonian Mad Dog reading, and the site of SN 1006, history's brightest supernova.

• Lepus: The Hare

  Lepus explained — Arneb and Nihal, the globular cluster M79, the deep-red R Leporis, and why Arab astronomers read its stars as Orion's throne.

• Indus: The Indian

  Indus explained — its two brightest stars, its 1598 origin as a generic indigenous figure, and why nearby Epsilon Indi matters more than the constellation itself.

• Hydrus: The Lesser Water Snake

  Hydrus explained — its three brightest stars, why it's not the same constellation as Hydra, and its position between the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds.

• Horologium: The Pendulum Clock

  Horologium's stars, its barred spiral galaxy NGC 1512, and why Lacaille named a whole constellation after the pendulum clock instead of a myth.

• Grus: The Crane

  Grus's three stars including Alnair, its origin as one of Keyser and de Houtman's bird constellations carved partly from Piscis Austrinus, and the interacting Grus Quartet galaxies.

• Fornax: The Furnace

  Fornax's three faint named stars, its origin as Lacaille's chemist's furnace, and the nearby Fornax Cluster with the barred spiral NGC 1365 and radio galaxy NGC 1316.

• Eridanus: The River

  Eridanus's four named stars including Achernar, its meandering path from near Rigel to the far south, and the myth of Phaethon's chariot crash that names it.

• Dorado: The Dolphinfish (Swordfish)

  Dorado's three named stars, the Large Magellanic Cloud and Tarantula Nebula it hosts, and why Dutch navigators named it for the dolphinfish rather than a goldfish.

• Crater: The Cup

  Crater's three named stars, why Labrum outshines Alpha-labeled Alkes, and how the Cup's only myth ties directly to the crow, Corvus, that never brought it back full.

• Corvus: The Crow

  Corvus's four stars, its Greek myth of Apollo's thirsty crow, the Babylonian raven MUL.UGA perched on the sky-serpent, and the colliding Antennae Galaxies riding along with it.