The largest of the three sections into
which the ancient constellation of Argo Navis, the ship of the Argonauts, was divided by
Nicolas Louis de Lacaille in his catalogue of the southern
stars published in 1763. Puppis represents the stern, or poop,
of the ship. Lacaille wrote that “the poop is separated
from the body of the vessel [Carina] by the rudder”, and
it is on the rudder that the bright star Canopus is placed.
Puppis has no stars labelled Alpha or Beta
because, when Argo Navis was divided up by Lacaille, the
original Greek-letter designations of the stars in Argo were
retained; Alpha and Beta ended up in the subdivision of Carina.
The brightest star in Puppis is in fact second-magnitude Zeta
Puppis, called Naos from the Greek word for ‘ship’.
© Ian Ridpath. All rights reserved
|
|
||||
 |
|
|||
|
|
||||
|
|
||||
|
|
|
|
|
|