Antlia

Antlia from Ancient Greek is a constellation in the southern sky. Its name means "pump" and it specifically represents an air pump. The stars comprising Antlia are faint, and the constellation was not created until the eighteenth century. Beginning at the north, Antlia is bordered by Hydra the sea snake, Pyxis the compass, Vela the sails, and Centaurus the centaur.

History

Antlia was created by the French astronomer Abbé Nicolas Louis de Lacaille, who created fourteen constellations for the southern sky to fill some faint regions. It was originally denominated Antlia pneumatica to commemorate the air pump invented by the French physicist Denis Papin. The International Astronomical Union subsequently adopted it as one of the 88 modern constellations. There is no mythology attached to Antlia as Lacaille discontinued the tradition of giving names from mythology to constellations and instead chose names mostly from scientific instruments. This constellation has not 3, but 4 main stars.

Notable features

Antlia is devoid of bright stars. The brightest star is α Antliae, a magnitude 4.25m orange giant. Antlia contains the following deep sky objects:

NGC 2997, a spiral galaxy of type Sc which is inclined 45° to our line of sight.
NGC 3132, a planetary nebula, also called the Eight-burst Nebula or Southern Ring Nebula. At its heart is a binary star system.
The Antlia Dwarf, a 14.8m dwarf spheroidal galaxy that belongs to our Local Group of galaxies. It was discovered only as recently as 1997.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antlia