Musca, the Fly, is a compact southern constellation just below the Southern Cross, one of the figures the Dutch navigators brought back from southern seas.
At a glance
| stars in the figure | 6 |
|---|---|
| nearest star of the figure | Delta Muscae, 90.9 light-years (27.9 pc) |
| farthest star of the figure | Beta Muscae, 342 light-years (105 pc) |
| depth | the farthest is 3.8 × farther than the nearest |
Read off the piece’s own catalogue, the same values it draws with.
About Musca
Musca is one of the southern constellations drawn up from the observations of the Dutch navigators Pieter Keyser and Frederick de Houtman, and published by Petrus Plancius. It began as a bee, and it was Lacaille who settled the name on a fly. Its stars form a neat, recognisable little shape directly south of Crux.
It lies in the southern Milky Way, and the dark Coalsack, the great dust cloud beside the Southern Cross, reaches across into it. Its stars are mostly hot blue-white ones; several belong to the same broad family of young stars as those of Crux and Centaurus, scattered through the nearest region of recent star formation.
Musca is close enough to the south celestial pole to stay above the horizon all night from much of the southern hemisphere, and it is highest on autumn evenings there. From most of the northern hemisphere it is never seen.
What you see in the piece
With CONSTELLATIONS (N) on, step out of the HUMAN EYE view (E) and the fly loses its shape: the nearest of its drawn stars lies a few times closer than the farthest, and the tidy outline pulls apart in depth.
Questions
Where is Musca in the sky?
Musca lies directly south of the Southern Cross, in the southern Milky Way next to the Coalsack. It is a southern-hemisphere constellation, never seen from most northern latitudes.
How far away are the stars of Musca?
The nearest star of the figure is Delta Muscae, 90.9 light-years (27.9 pc); the farthest is Beta Muscae, 342 light-years (105 pc). The farthest is 3.8 × farther than the nearest.