The Air Pump
| Abbreviation: | Ant |
| Genitive: | Antliae |
| Origin: | Nicolas Louis de Lacaille, 1756 |
| Fully Visible: | 90°S – 49°N |
French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille (1713–1762) travelled to South Africa in the mid-eighteenth century where he constructed an observatory and spent two years observing the southern skies. Not only did he catalogue nearly 10,000 southern stars, he also surveyed 42 'nebulous' objects and devised over a dozen new constellations. Originally named Machine Pneumatique, this faint southern hemisphere constellation was later Latinised to Antlia Pneumatica and eventually shortened to just Antlia. This constellation is one of a number of 'modern' constellations named after scientific instruments.
Notable Features
| Visible Named Stars | ||
|---|---|---|
| The brightest star in the constellation, α Ant, is fourth-magnitude. None of the visible stars in this constellation have an official name. | ||
| Other Interesting Stars | ||
| HD 93083 | Macondo | This eighth-magnitude star is known to have at least one exoplanet. It is located just off of the constellation line connecting α Ant and ι Ant. |
Copyright © 1995–2023 by L.M. Stockman and David Harper