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One of the 12 constellations introduced at the end of the 16th century by the Dutch navigators Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman after their pioneer mapping of the southern skies. Grus represents a long-necked wading bird, the crane. The constellation was first shown on a celestial globe by Petrus Plancius in 1598 under the name Krane Grus, respectively Dutch and Latin for crane, although on a later Plancius globe issued posthumously in 1625 it bore the alternative title of Phoenicopterus, the flamingo. In his southern star catalogue of 1603 de Houtman called it Den Reygher, the heron.
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Grus cranes its neck in the Uranographia of Johann Bode.


Grus was formed from stars south of Piscis Austrinus, the Southern Fish. The constellation’s brightest star, of second magnitude, is named Alnair, from an abbreviation of the Arabic meaning ‘the bright one from the fish’s tail’, for the Arabs had extended the tail of the southern fish into this region. There are no legends associated with Grus, but in Greek mythology the crane was sacred to Hermes.



© Ian Ridpath. All rights reserved


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