Antlia originally known as Antlia Pneumatica (Lacaille 1756), is a southern Celestial Hemisphere, in Latin, it means ‘Pump’ while in Greek it means ‘air pump’ and was discovered or created by Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille in the 18th century.
Its original name was accepted and welcomed by the astronomic community and preferred by John Herschel. It is situated North of the constellation Argo Navis, the stars forming the sails. Antlia is visible from latitudes south of 49 degrees North. Antlia is considered a faint constellation with its brightest star being Alpha Antliea only at magnitude 4.22-4.29
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Lacaille described the machine as ‘the Pneumatic Machine’ (la Machine Pneumatique, in French) which observed the air pump designed and invented by Denis Papi, a French Physicist and a forerunner of the steam engine.
In 1844 John Herschel put forward and recommended the shrinking of the Antlia Pneumatica to a singular word ‘Antlia’ and reinforced his argument by stating that Lacaille himself abbreviated the name to Antlia on occasions (Herschel 1844), this was universally accepted (Wagman 2003) and the International Astronomical Union adopted as one of the 88 constellations in 1922 (Russell 1922).
In 1844 John Herschel put forward and recommended the shrinking of the Antlia Pneumatica to a singular word ‘Antlia’ and reinforced his argument by stating that Lacaille himself abbreviated the name to Antlia on occasions (Herschel 1844), this was universally accepted (Wagman 2003) and the International Astronomical Union adopted as one of the 88 constellations in 1922 (Russell 1922).
The constellation was too faint for ancient civilisations to see fully but the stars which could be seen were used in other constellations nearby. Chinese astronomers, from their latitudes, incorporated the stars into ‘Dong’ou’ which was a representation of the southern area of China. The stars Epsilon, Eta and Theta Antliae were part of the celestial temple which also contained stars from the modern constellation Pyxis.
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