Hydrus the Lesser water snake is located near the south pole and therefore cannot be seen from Britain. It was one of twelve constellations created by Petrus Plancius from the observations of Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman on their explorations of what would become the Dutch East Indies and today is Indonesia. The constellation first appeared on a 35-cm (14 in) diameter celestial globe published in late 1597 (or early 1598) in Amsterdam by Plancius and Jodocus Hondius. The first depiction of this constellation in a celestial atlas was in Johann Bayer's Uranometria of 1603.
This is a smaller southern hemisphere version of the great
water snake, Hydra. Hydrus is sandwiched between the two Magellanic clouds and
almost bridges the gap between Eridanus and the south celestial pole. The
Magellanic clouds are two nearby galaxies that can be seen with the naked eye
from the southern hemisphere. As Hydrus
is so far south it was not known to astronomers in Europe or the Middle East
and therefore has no old myths or legends attached to it. Unfortunately, Hydrus is not a very bright constellation.
The brightest star is beta with a magnitude of magnitude 2.8 lying at a distance of only 25 light years. Beta is a G class star.
Alpha is the second brightest star with a magnitude of 2.9,
its a F class star lying at a distance of 72 light years.
Located mostly in Dorado the Goldfish, the Large Magellanic
Cloud also extends into Hydrus.
There are no bright deep sky objects in Hydrus
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