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Octans (ˈɒktænz) is a faint constellation located in the deep Southern Sky. Its name is Latin for the eighth part of a circle, but it is named after the octant, a navigational instrument. Devised by French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille in 1752, Octans remains one of the 88 modern constellations. The southern celestial pole is located within the boundaries of Octans. 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 symbolised the Age of Enlightenment. It was part of his catalogue of the southern sky, the Coelum Australe Stelliferum, which was published posthumously in 1763. In Europe, it became more widely known as Octans Hadleianus, in honor of English mathematician John Hadley, who invented the octant in 1730. There is no real mythology related to Octans, partially due to its faintness and relative recentness, but mostly because of its extreme southerly latitude. List of stars in Octans Octans is a generally inconspicuous constellation with only one star brighter than magnitude 4; its brightest member is Nu Octantis, a spectral class K1 III giant star with an apparent magnitude 3.73. It is 63.3 ± 0.8 light-years distant from Earth. Beta Octantis is the second brightest star in the constellation. Polaris Australis (Sigma Octantis), the southern pole star, is a magnitude 5.4 star just over 1 degree away from the true south celestial pole. Its relative faintness means that it is not practical for navigation. BQ Octantis is a fainter, magnitude 6.82 star located much closer to the South Pole (at less than a degree) than Sigma.

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Related concepts (7)

Horologium (constellation)

Horologium (Latin hōrologium, the pendulum clock, from Greek ὡρολόγιον, an instrument for telling the hour) 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 constellation.

Octans

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Fornax (ˈfɔrnæks) is a constellation in the southern celestial hemisphere, partly ringed by the celestial river Eridanus. Its name is Latin for furnace. It was named by French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille in 1756. Fornax is one of the 88 modern constellations. The three brightest stars—Alpha, Beta and Nu Fornacis—form a flattened triangle facing south. With an apparent magnitude of 3.91, Alpha Fornacis is the brightest star in Fornax. Six star systems have been found to have exoplanets.