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Columba is a dim constellation that was named in the late fifteenth century and is still in use today, with strict boundaries set in the twentieth century. Its name means "dove" in Latin. It is located slightly south of Canis Major and Lepus and occupies 1.31 percent of the southern celestial hemisphere.
The solar antapex is found in Columba, and it's worth noting that the Milky Way's local spiral arm is responsible for the majority of our change of location over time, which is the polar opposite of the solar system's net orientation. Early 3rd century BC: Aratus describes dim stars near Columba in his astronomical poem Phainomena (lines 367–370 and 384–385) but does not give them a name or figure. Claudius Ptolemy named 48 constellations in the Almagest in the 2nd century AD but did not mention Columba. To distinguish the 'unformed stars' of the great constellation Canis Major, Petrus Plancius first drew Columba on the miniature celestial planispheres of his big wall chart in 1592AD (Ridpath & Tirion 2001). Columba appears on his 1594 world map as well as early Dutch celestial globes. (Ley 1963) The constellation Columba Noachi ("Noah's Dove") was named by Petrus Plancius after the dove who informed Noah that the Great Flood was receding. Celestial globes and star atlases from the early 17th century have this term. |
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Deep-sky Objects
NGC 1851 – Globular Cluster NGC 1792 – Spiral Galaxy NGC 1808 – Seyfert Galaxy Bordering constellations
Main stars- 5 Bayer stars - 18 Stars with planets - 1 Stars brighter than magnitude 3.00 - 1 Stars within 32 ly - 0 |
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