This constellation was originated in 1777
by Martin Poczobut, director of the Royal Observatory at Vilna
(now Vilnius, Lithuania), to honour his king, Stanislaw II
Poniatowski of Poland – at that time, Lithuania was part
of Poland. Poczobut published a catalogue of 16 stars making up
the constellation in Cahiers des
observations astronomiques faites à l’observatoire
royal de Vilna en 1773 (published
1777). The constellation was first depicted in 1778 as le
Taureau Royal de Poniatowski in a revised reprint of Jean
Fortin’s Atlas Céleste. The name was later Latinized by Bode on his Uranographia of
1801. The constellation was formed from a V-shaped group of
stars that Ptolemy in his Almagest had classified as being
outside Ophiuchus. Poczobut thought that this group resembled
the Hyades cluster that outlines the face of Taurus the bull in
the zodiac. Its stars are now part of Ophiuchus.
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Taurus Poniatovii pictured in the Uranographia of Johann Bode.
© Ian Ridpath. All rights reserved
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