The Compasses
| Abbreviation: | Cir |
| Genitive: | Circini |
| Origin: | Nicolas Louis de Lacaille, 1756 |
| Fully Visible: | 90°S – 19°N |
French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille (1713–1762) travelled to South Africa in the mid-eighteenth century where he constructed an observatory and spent two years observing the southern skies. Not only did he catalogue nearly 10,000 southern stars, he also surveyed 42 'nebulous' objects and devised over a dozen new constellations. One of those constellations was Le Compas (later Latinised to Circinus), referring to a draughting tool for drawing circles. It is one of the smallest constellations in the sky and one of a number of 'modern' constellations named after scientific instruments.
Notable Features
| Visible Named Stars | ||
|---|---|---|
| α Cir | Xami | This is one of the brightest rapidly-oscillating Ap stars in the sky. At third magnitude, Xami is the brightest star in the constellation and the only one to bear an official name. |
| Deep Sky Objects | ||
| C88 | This faint open cluster (also catalogued as NGC 5823) requires binoculars or a small telescope to see it. | |
Copyright © 1995–2025 by L.M. Stockman and David Harper