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> Constellations of Sculptor and Fornax

Constellations of Sculptor and Fornax

author: A.Fujii/David Malin Images/Novapix

reference: a-cst77-00002

Image Size 300 DPI: 51 * 40 cm

Sculptor was originally L'Atelier du Sculpteur, (the Sculptor's Studio) and was so named by Abbé Nicolas Louis de Lacaille during his sojourn at the Cape of Good Hope between 1751 and 1752. It was made from stars that were originally between Cetus and Phoenix. Lacaille later Latinised this name to Apparatus Sculptoris, since happily shortened. Fornax was created out of several faint stars in the southern part of Eridanus, also by de Lacaille, who originally named this obscure grouping le Fourneau (the Furnace) in the 1750s. The name was later Latinised (by Bode) to Fornax Chimiae, the Chemical Furnace in honor of the famous French chemist Antoine Lavoisier, who was guillotined in 1794 during the French Revolution. Neither Sculptor nor Fornax have bright naked-eye stars, but both contain nearby clusters of galaxies (see below). The constellations are in the direction of the south Galactic pole, where we look out of the Milky Way along its axis of rotation, so we see the galaxies through an unusually thin veil of foreground stars. This is quite unlike the situation in star-rich Sagittarius, where we gaze towards the Galactic centre, 90 degrees away across the sky. This image was taken from the northern hemisphere Sculptor and Fornax are always close to the horizon.  

Keywords for this photo:

ASTRONOMY - CETUS - CONSTELLATION - FOMALHAUT - FORNAX - HORIZON - LINE - MAP - NIGHT - POSTER - SCULPTOR - SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE - STAR - STARRY SKY -