A faint constellation overshadowed by the brilliant star Canopus in Carina to one side and the Large Magellanic Cloud in Dorado on the other. Pictor cannot be seen from Britain.
The constellation was invented by Lacaille in the 1750s
while in the southern hemisphere. There are no myths or legends attached to the
constellation.
The brightest star alpha with a magnitude of 3.3, if there is any mist or moonlight the star cannot be seen. It’s an A class star 7,000 degrees and is 97 light years away.
The only other star worth mentioning is beta a magnitude of
3.9 another A class star this time hotter with a temperature of 8,000 degrees
and is 65 light years away. Beta is a young star only 20-26 million years old.
There are three planets orbiting the star.
A bright nova was seen by R. Watson in South Africa on May
25th, 1925 when it had a magnitude of 2.3 and reached a maximum brightness of magnitude
1.2 on June 9th, 1925, by July 4th it had faded to magnitude 3 then
unexpectedly rose again to magnitude 1.9
on August 9th. The nova which today is known as RR Pictor is classed as a slow
nova unlike nova Aquila 1918 and Nov Puppis 1942 which are fast nova. RR is
believed to be around 1,700 light years away.
A nova is a binary system with a small white dwarf star and
a large cool giant star they orbit each other. The white dwarf pulls gas from
the giant star towards it and some of this gas then cascades down onto the
surface of the white dwarf which throws this gas into space.
In the Middle Ages
before the invention of the telescope when people saw this kind of star
appearing in the sky where nothing had been seen before they called it a Nova
which in Latin means new. They thought a star was being born. Today we know that these are older stars
going through a cycle in their timeline.
www.theramblingastronomer.co.uk
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