Apus
Sign in to saveApus is a small constellation in the southern sky. It represents a bird-of-paradise, and its name means "without feet" in Greek because the bird-of-paradise was once wrongly believed to lack feet. First depicted on a celestial globe by Petrus Plancius in 1598, it was charted on a star atlas by Johann Bayer in his 1603 Uranometria. The French explorer and astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille charted and gave the brighter stars their Bayer designations in 1756.
AI overview
Apus is a small constellation in the southern sky that represents a bird-of-paradise, named "without feet" in Greek because these birds were once mistakenly thought to have no feet. It was first depicted on a celestial globe in 1598 and later charted in detail by astronomers in the early 1600s and 1700s, helping establish its place in our modern understanding of the night sky.
AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.
Key facts
- Constellation.name
- Apus
- Constellation.abbreviation
- Aps
- Constellation.genitive
- Apodis
- Constellation.pronounce
- , genitive
- Constellation.symbolism
- The Bird-of-Paradise
- Constellation.RA
- –
- Constellation.dec
- to
- Constellation.family
- Bayer
- Constellation.areatotal
- 206
- Constellation.arearank
- 67th
- Constellation.numbermainstars
- 4
- Constellation.numberbfstars
- 12
- Constellation.numberbrightstars
Article
9 sectionsContents
- History
- Characteristics
- Features
- Stars
- Deep-sky objects
- See also
- Notes
- References
- External links
Apus is a small constellation in the southern sky. It represents a bird-of-paradise, and its name means "without feet" in Greek because the bird-of-paradise was once wrongly believed to lack feet. First depicted on a celestial globe by Petrus Plancius in 1598, it was charted on a star atlas by Johann Bayer in his 1603 Uranometria. The French explorer and astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille charted and gave the brighter stars their Bayer designations in 1756.
The five brightest stars are all reddish in hue. Shading the others at apparent magnitude 3.8 is Alpha Apodis, an orange giant that has around 48 times the diameter and 928 times the luminosity of the Sun. Marginally fainter is Gamma Apodis, another aging giant star. Delta Apodis is a double star, the two components of which are 103 arcseconds apart and visible with the naked eye. Two star systems have been found to have planets.