Microscopium, the Microscope, is a small, faint southern constellation below Capricornus, one of the scientific instruments added to the sky by Lacaille.
At a glance
| stars in the figure | 2 |
|---|---|
| nearest star of the figure | Alpha Microscopii, 378 light-years (116 pc) |
| farthest star of the figure | Beta Microscopii, 482 light-years (148 pc) |
| depth | the farthest is 1.3 × farther than the nearest |
Read off the piece’s own catalogue, the same values it draws with.
About Microscopium
Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille filled the empty spaces of the southern sky with the tools of the Enlightenment, and the compound microscope was one of them. Microscopium sits just south of Capricornus and east of Sagittarius, a dim quadrilateral with no star bright enough to catch the eye from a city.
Its best-known resident is not a bright star but a small one: AU Microscopii, a young red dwarf surrounded by an edge-on disc of dust in which planets have been found. It is one of the nearby places where astronomers can watch a planetary system still settling after its birth. The constellation also lies well away from the Milky Way, so its sky opens onto distant galaxies.
Microscopium is best seen on evenings in the southern winter and spring. From mid-northern latitudes it rises low over the southern horizon in late summer.
What you see in the piece
The figure as drawn here is only two stars. Seen from Earth with HUMAN EYE (E), they sit side by side; with CONSTELLATIONS (N) on, flown out to, they turn out to lie at broadly similar distances, so the pair holds together better than most constellations do.
Questions
How far away are the stars of Microscopium?
Alpha Microscopii lies 378 light-years (116 pc) away and Beta Microscopii 482 light-years (148 pc): the farthest is 1.3 × farther than the nearest.