Fornax the Furnace is a constellation in the southern sky, its name is Latin for furnace. It is one of the so-called modern constellations it was named by the French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille in 1752. Fornax like so many of the modern constellations is a very barren area in the sky.
The constellation is formed within the southern bend of
Eridanus, originally part of Eridanus and partly ringed by the celestial river
Eridanus. The stars of Fornax are so faint that quite honestly the stars could
have remained part of Eridanus. Fornax is a very barren constellation which is
just visible from Britain.
It was originally called Fornax Chemica the Chemical
Furnace, today it is just known as Fornax.
The Chinese astronomers knew this area of sky as Tien Yu or
Heaven’s Temporary Granary
The only star worth mentioning is alpha at magnitude 3.9. It would be possible just to glimpse alpha if the sky was very clear and you had a totally flat southern horizon. 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 F class star lying at 46 light years away.
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 is 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.
www.theramblingastronomer.co.uk
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