One of the three sections into which the
French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille divided the Greek
constellation of Argo Navis,
the Argonauts’ ship, in his 1763 southern star catalogue.
Vela represents the ship’s sails; the other sections are
Carina, the Keel, and Puppis, the Stern. Lacaille wrote:
“I have called the sails everything outside the vessel
between the edges and the horizontal mast, or the spar on which
the sail is reefed”.
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Traditionally, the sail of Argo has been shown furled around a cross-spar on the main mast, as in this early illustration from the Uranographia of Johann Bayer in 1603, and not open and billowing as imagined in some popular representations. © Tartu Observatory Virtual Museum.
Because of the dismantling of Argo Navis,
Vela possesses no stars labelled Alpha or Beta, since these
stars were retained in Carina. Its brightest star is Gamma
Velorum, a second-magnitude double star.
© Ian Ridpath. All rights reserved
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