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Sky Chart and Artist Rendering of Columba
Origin:
The small constellation Columba was introduced to the southern sky maps by
Frenchman Augustin Royer in 1679. Originally, it was denoted Columba
Noachi (Noah's Dove - representing the dove released by Noah from the Ark
after coming to rest on Mt. Ararat) but the shortened "Columba"
was accepted by the International
Astronomical Union in 1930.
Information:
Columba is a Fall/Winter constellation for northern observers, directly
south on January 30 at 9 pm. It is located directly below (south of)
Lepus which is itself located directly below Orion. Northern hemisphere observers will
probably find the loosely defined constellation by the magnitude 2.7 Phact
(Alpha Columbae) while scanning the skies down from Orion, through Lepus,
to Columba. Columba, like its neighbor Caelum,
is home to no naked eye objects but has several multiple stars, several
galaxies and one of the finer globular clusters (NGC 1851), all of which
are of telescopic interest. |
