ABSTRACT
This chapter contains a map of the whole of Carina, Pictor, Volans and Mensa, with most of Vela and parts of Dorado, Centaurus, Crux and Chamleon. Two objects stand out at once. One is of course Canopus, which far outshines every other star in the sky apart from Sirius, and according to the Cambridge catalogue is 200,000 times as luminous as the Sun. The other is the nebulosity associated with Eta Carinae, the most erratic of all variables and at times the most spectacular. Eta Carinae is almost as powerful today as it was in the 1840s; it appears dimmer partly because it is more strongly veiled by nebulosity, and partly because its main emission is in infra-red. Volans intrudes into Carina, between Canopus and Beta Carinae. Beta Pictoris, probably the best-known candidate as the centre of a system of planets, shows up to the right of Canopus.
