Tucana
Encyclopedia
Tucana is a constellation
Constellation
In modern astronomy, a constellation is an internationally defined area of the celestial sphere. These areas are grouped around asterisms, patterns formed by prominent stars within apparent proximity to one another on Earth's night sky....

 in the southern sky, created in the late sixteenth century. Its name is Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 for the toucan
Toucan
Toucans are members of the family Ramphastidae of near passerine birds from the Neotropics. The family is most closely related to the American barbets. They are brightly marked and have large, often colorful bills. The family includes five genera and about forty different species...

, a South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...

n bird
Bird
Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...

.

History

The constellation was one of twelve created by Petrus Plancius
Petrus Plancius
Petrus 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...

 from the observations of Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser
Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser
Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser , a.k.a. Petrus Theodori, was a Dutch navigator who mapped the southern sky....

 and Frederick de Houtman
Frederick de Houtman
Frederick de Houtman , or Frederik de Houtman, was a Dutch explorer who sailed along the Western coast of Australia en route to Batavia.-Biography:...

 and it first appeared on a 35-cm diameter celestial globe published in 1597 (or 1598) in Amsterdam by Plancius with Jodocus Hondius
Jodocus Hondius
Jodocus Hondius , sometimes called Jodocus Hondius the Elder to distinguish him from his son Henricus Hondius II, was a Flemish artist, engraver, and cartographer...

. The first depiction of this constellation in a celestial atlas was in Johann Bayer
Johann Bayer
Johann 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...

's Uranometria
Uranometria
Uranometria 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.

Stars

Beta Tucanae
Beta Tucanae
Beta Tucanae is a group of six stars which appear to be at least loosely bound into a system in the constellation Tucana. Three of the stars are luminous enough to have been given their own Bayer designations, β¹ Tucanae through β³ Tucanae...

 is in fact a group of six stars which appear to be at least loosely bound into a system. The two brightest of these, Beta-1 Tucanae and Beta-2 Tucanae, are 27 arcseconds apart and have magnitudes of between 4 and 5. They are (probably) accompanied by a third star, Beta-3 Tucanae, which is further away, separated by 9 arcminutes from them.

Kappa Tucanae
Kappa Tucanae
Kappa Tucanae is a star system in the constellation Tucana. It is approximately 66.6 light years from Earth and the combined apparent magnitude of the system is +4.25....

 is a group of four stars: two binary stars.

Lambda Tucanae
Lambda Tucanae
The Bayer designation Lambda Tucanae is shared by two star systems, λ¹ Tucanae and λ² Tucanae, in the constellation Tucana. They are separated by 0.23° in the sky.-λ¹ Tucanae:...

 is an optical double - that is, the name is give to two stars which appear close together from our viewpoint, but are in fact far apart in space. The two stars are known as Lambda 1 and Lambda 2. Lambda 1 is itself a binary star, with two components.

Deep sky objects

At the southern end of Tucana lies the Small Magellanic Cloud
Small Magellanic Cloud
The Small Magellanic Cloud is a dwarf galaxy. It has a diameter of about 7,000 light-years and contains several hundred million stars. It has a total mass of approximately 7 billion times the mass of our Sun....

. The globular cluster
Globular cluster
A globular cluster is a spherical collection of stars that orbits a galactic core as a satellite. Globular clusters are very tightly bound by gravity, which gives them their spherical shapes and relatively high stellar densities toward their centers. The name of this category of star cluster is...

 47 Tucanae
47 Tucanae
47 Tucanae or just 47 Tuc is a globular cluster located in the constellation Tucana. It is about 16,700 light years away from Earth, and 120 light years across. It can be seen with the naked eye, with a visual magnitude of 4.0...

 (NGC 104) is also located within its boundaries, as is the Tucana Dwarf galaxy, which was discovered in 1990. NGC 346
NGC 346
NGC 346 is an open cluster with associated nebula located in the Small Magellanic Cloud that appears in the constellation Tucana.-Gallery:-External links:* * *...

is also star forming region.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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