Fornax the Furnace
Fornax
is a constellation in the southern sky, originally part of Eridanus
and partly ringed by the celestial river Eridanus. Its name is Latin
for furnace. It was named by the French astronomer Nicolas Louis de
Lacaille in 1756.
Fornax
is a very barren constellation which is just visible from Britain.
The
only star worth mentioning is alpha at magnitude 3.9. Originally
designated 12 Eridani by John Flamsteed in the 1670s , alpha was
named by Lacaille as the brightest star in the new constellation. It
is a F8 class star lying at a distance of 46 light years.
Although
the constellation has little to offer to the naked eye observer there
is a wealth of galaxies to users of large telescopes.
Unknown
to Lacaille the constellation contains The Fornax Dwarf galaxy which
part of the Local Group of galaxies.
There is the Fornax cluster of
galaxies 60-80 million light years away, the cluster contains around
60 galaxies.
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