Columba is a small, faint
constellationIn modern astronomy, a constellation is an area of the celestial sphere, defined by exact boundaries.The term "constellation" can also be used loosely to refer to just the more prominent visible stars that seem to form a pattern in that area.-Definitions:...
created in the late sixteenth century. Its name is
LatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Roman conquest, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe...
for
dovePigeons and doves constitute the family Columbidae within the order Columbiformes, which include some 300 species of near passerine birds. In general parlance the terms "dove" and "pigeon" are used somewhat interchangeably...
. It is located just south of
Canis MajorCanis Major is a constellation, included in the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy's 48 constellations, and still included among the 88 modern constellations. Its name is Latin for 'greater dog', and is commonly represented as one of the dogs following Orion the hunter...
and
LepusLepus is a constellation lying just south of the celestial equator. Its name is Latin for hare. Lepus was one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy, and it remains one of the 88 modern constellations...
.
Columba was created by
DutchThe Netherlands is a country in Northwestern Europe, constituting the major portion of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east...
astronomer
Petrus PlanciusPetrus Plancius , was a Dutch astronomer, cartographer and clergyman. He was born as Pieter Platevoet in Dranouter, now in Heuvelland, West Flanders. He studied theology in Germany and England...
in 1592 in order to differentiate the 'unformed stars' of the large constellation
Canis MajorCanis Major is a constellation, included in the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy's 48 constellations, and still included among the 88 modern constellations. Its name is Latin for 'greater dog', and is commonly represented as one of the dogs following Orion the hunter...
. Plancius first depicted Columba on the small celestial planispheres of his large wall map of 1592. It is also shown on his smaller world map of 1594 and on early Dutch celestial globes.
Plancius originally named the constellation
Columba Noachi ("
NoahNoah was, according to the Bible, the tenth and last of the antediluvian Patriarchs; and a prophet according to the Qur'an...
's Dove"), referring to the dove that gave Noah the information that the Great Flood was receding.
Columba is a small, faint
constellationIn modern astronomy, a constellation is an area of the celestial sphere, defined by exact boundaries.The term "constellation" can also be used loosely to refer to just the more prominent visible stars that seem to form a pattern in that area.-Definitions:...
created in the late sixteenth century. Its name is
LatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Roman conquest, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe...
for
dovePigeons and doves constitute the family Columbidae within the order Columbiformes, which include some 300 species of near passerine birds. In general parlance the terms "dove" and "pigeon" are used somewhat interchangeably...
. It is located just south of
Canis MajorCanis Major is a constellation, included in the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy's 48 constellations, and still included among the 88 modern constellations. Its name is Latin for 'greater dog', and is commonly represented as one of the dogs following Orion the hunter...
and
LepusLepus is a constellation lying just south of the celestial equator. Its name is Latin for hare. Lepus was one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy, and it remains one of the 88 modern constellations...
.
History
Columba was created by
DutchThe Netherlands is a country in Northwestern Europe, constituting the major portion of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east...
astronomer
Petrus PlanciusPetrus Plancius , was a Dutch astronomer, cartographer and clergyman. He was born as Pieter Platevoet in Dranouter, now in Heuvelland, West Flanders. He studied theology in Germany and England...
in 1592 in order to differentiate the 'unformed stars' of the large constellation
Canis MajorCanis Major is a constellation, included in the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy's 48 constellations, and still included among the 88 modern constellations. Its name is Latin for 'greater dog', and is commonly represented as one of the dogs following Orion the hunter...
. Plancius first depicted Columba on the small celestial planispheres of his large wall map of 1592. It is also shown on his smaller world map of 1594 and on early Dutch celestial globes.
Plancius originally named the constellation
Columba Noachi ("
NoahNoah was, according to the Bible, the tenth and last of the antediluvian Patriarchs; and a prophet according to the Qur'an...
's Dove"), referring to the dove that gave Noah the information that the Great Flood was receding. This name is found on early 17th-century celestial globes and star atlases (such as
Bayer'sJohann Bayer was a German lawyer and uranographer . He was born in Rain, Bavaria in 1572. He began his study of philosophy in Ingolstadt in 1592, and moved later to Augsburg to begin work as a lawyer. He grew interested in astronomy during his time in Augsburg...
UranometriaUranometria is the short title of a star atlas produced by Johann Bayer.It was published in Augsburg, Germany, in 1603 by Christophorus Mangus under the full title Uranometria : omnium asterismorum continens schemata, nova methodo delineata, aereis laminis expressa. This translates to...
of 1603).
Notable features
Columba is rather inconspicuous, the brightest star
α ColumbaeAlpha Columbae is the 3rd magnitude and most brightest star in the constellation Columba. It has a proper name Phact.- Physical charactericities :...
having the
magnitudeThe apparent magnitude of a celestial body is a measure of its brightness as seen by an observer on Earth, normalized to the value it would have in the absence of the atmosphere...
of 2.65
m. α Columbae is called Phact, which comes from Arabic Al-Fakhita (the dove). The only other named star is Beta, β, Columbae, which has the name
WaznIn Arab music a wazn is a rhythmic pattern or cycle, literally translated as "measure" ....
or Wezn, from the Arabic for a weight.
The constellation contains the runaway star
μ ColumbaeMu Columbae is a star in the constellation of Columba. It is one of the few O-class stars that is visible to the unaided eye. The star is known to lie approximately 1,300 light years from our solar system .This is a relatively fast rotating star that completes a full revolution approximately every...
, which was probably expelled from the
ι OrionisIota Orionis is the brightest star in Orion's sword. This system is at the tip of the sword. It has the traditional names Hatsya , or in Arabic, Na’ir al Saif, which means simply "the Bright One of the Sword."This is a quadruple system dominated by a massive spectroscopic binary with an eccentric...
system.
External links