Apus, the Bird of Paradise, is a small, faint constellation close to the south celestial pole, never seen from most of the northern hemisphere.
At a glance
| stars in the figure | 4 |
|---|---|
| nearest star of the figure | Gamma Apodis, 156 light-years (47.9 pc) |
| farthest star of the figure | Delta¹ Apodis, 762 light-years (234 pc) |
| depth | the farthest is 4.9 × farther than the nearest |
Read off the piece’s own catalogue, the same values it draws with.
About Apus
Apus is one of the constellations drawn from the observations of the Dutch navigators Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman, who charted the far southern stars on the first Dutch voyages to the East Indies. The cartographer Petrus Plancius turned their positions into new figures, and this one became the bird of paradise, a bird European collectors knew only from skins brought back from New Guinea.
Its stars are faint. Alpha Apodis, the brightest, is an orange giant. Delta Apodis is a wide pair of reddish giants that binoculars split easily. Apus sits so close to the pole that from mid-southern latitudes it never sets, circling the pole all year.
What you see in the piece
In space the bird comes apart: Gamma Apodis is relatively close, while Delta¹ Apodis lies far behind it, so stars that sit side by side in the sky turn out to be strung out along the line of sight.
Questions
Can you see Apus from the northern hemisphere?
Only from close to the equator. Apus lies near the south celestial pole, so it stays below the horizon for nearly everyone in the northern hemisphere.
How far away are the stars of Apus?
The nearest star of the figure is Gamma Apodis, 156 light-years (47.9 pc) away, and the farthest is Delta¹ Apodis, 762 light-years (234 pc).