ABSTRACT

Pictor and Pyxis are included, and parts of Columba, Antlia, Dorado and Volans. Most of these stars are invisible from European latitudes; for example, Eta Columbæ in the southern part of the Dove does not rise from Britain and the northern United States and Canada, though the other main stars of the constellation do appear briefly over the southern horizon. Pyxis is an obscure constellation, but it does contain some objects worth noting. Zeta is a wide, easy telescopic double, and Kappa has a companion above the tenth magnitude; the primary is distinctly red. Pictor, the Painter, adjoins Carina in the region of Canopus. Much the most interesting object is Beta, of magnitude 3.8; according to the Cambridge catalogue it is 78 light-years away and 58 times as luminous as the Sun.