In his 1725 Catalogus Britannicus, John Flamsteed labelled the stars 1, 2, 3 and 4 Piscis Austrini, which became Gamma Microscopii, HR 8076, HR 8110 and Epsilon Microscopii respectively.
Microscopium itself was introduced in 1751–52 by Lacaille with the French name le Microscope, after he had observed and catalogued 10,000 southern stars during a two-year stay at the Cape of Good Hope.
Given that its brightest stars are of fifth magnitude, the constellation is invisible to the naked eye in areas with light polluted skies. ==Features== ===Stars=== French astronomer Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille charted and designated ten stars with the Bayer designations Alpha through to Iota in 1756.
Commemorating the compound microscope, the Microscope's name had been Latinised by Lacaille to Microscopium by 1763. ==Notes== ==References== ===Citations=== ===Cited texts=== == External links == The Deep Photographic Guide to the Constellations: Microscopium The clickable Microscopium Southern constellations Constellations listed by Lacaille
The recommended three-letter abbreviation for the constellation, as adopted by the International Astronomical Union in 1922, is "Mic".
The official constellation boundaries, as set by Belgian astronomer Eugène Delporte in 1930, are defined by a polygon of four segments (illustrated in infobox).
The Microscopium Supercluster is an overdensity of galaxy clusters that was first noticed in the early 1990s.
The three stars are candidate members of the Beta Pictoris moving group, one of the nearest associations of stars that share a common motion through space. The Astronomical Society of Southern Africa in 2003 reported that observations of four of the Mira variables in Microscopium were very urgently needed as data on their light curves was incomplete.
SN 2011ei, a Type II Supernova in NGC 6925, was discovered by Stu Parker in New Zealand in July 2011.
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Page generated on 2021-08-05