A small, faint constellation of the far
southern sky, originally called Mons Mensae. It commemorates
Table Mountain near Cape Town, South Africa, from where the
French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille catalogued the
southern stars in 1751–52. Mensa contains part of the
Large Magellanic Cloud, a neighbour galaxy to our Milky Way,
which gives Mensa the appearance of being capped by a white
cloud, like the so-called “tablecloth” cloud
sometimes seen over the real Table Mountain “when the
violent south-easter blows”, as Lacaille put it.
Mensa’s brightest stars are of only fifth magnitude.
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Mensa, introduced by Lacaille under the name Mons Mensae, as illustrated in the Uranographia of Johann Bode. Nubecula Major is the Large Magellanic Cloud, representing the cloud that caps the real Table Mountain.
© Ian Ridpath. All rights reserved
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