Octans

Octans is a Southern Hemisphere constellation otherwise known as the Octant. It is one of fourteen new constellations created by French astronomer Abbe Nicolas Louis de Lacaille (Wikipedia) in the 1750s, from his star catalog observations from the Cape of Good Hope and published posthumously in Coelum Australe Stelliferum in 1763.Octans remains one of the 88 modern constellations defined by the International Astronomical Union (Wikipedia).

Octans (abbrev. = Oct; genitive = Octantis) covers 291 square degrees or 0.71% of the celestial sphere making it the 50th largest constellation. It contains 60 stars brighter than apparent magnitude 6.5, the brightest star being �_ Octantis.

For more information see the entries for Octans at Wikipedia and U. Wisconsin. For a chart of Octans, see Oct (IAU).


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