Caelum Constellation: The Ultimate Guide

Caelum is classified as one of the modern constellations. It does not appear or has no associated history in ancient Western cultures because it was not visible in those regions.

It is known that Caelum is one of the faintest constellations and that most of its stars cannot be seen with the naked eye, so it was necessary to wait for telescopes to be invented to see it.

Caelum was first introduced in the eighteenth century by the French astronomer Lacaille, creator of thirteen other constellations of the southern skies.

The French name given by Lacaille to this constellation was Burin, which translated into Latin reads as Cælum Scalptorium.

Years later, the astronomer John Herschel suggested to the researcher Francis Baily to shorten the constellation's name. It was renamed Cælum Scalptorium to Caelum.

In Lacaille's original chart, the constellation is shown as a burin or a stylus. However, it has come to be recognized simply as a chisel.

In 1922 the International Astronomical Association added the constellation Caelum to the 88 official night sky constellations. Since then, it has not undergone significant modifications in its boundaries.

In this way, Caelum remains the eighth smallest constellation of all, occupying an area of only 125 square degrees in the celestial vault.

Caelum resides in the first quadrant of the Southern Hemisphere (SQ1) between 40° N and 90° S latitudes, which means that we can see the constellation in the night sky from all countries of the southern hemisphere of the earth and some countries of the northern hemisphere.

Caelum is visible in America, Europe, Africa, Australia, Japan, and Antarctica.

Caelum is not visible in regions above 40° N such as Canada, most of Europe such as Italy, France or Germany, Russia, Greenland, and Alaska.

Caelum is a constellation very close to the south pole. It is visible all year round; however, January is the best month to visualize it.

It is considered a constellation that presents better visibility in the northern hemisphere and during the summer in the southern hemisphere.

The constellation Caelum is very dim, so you can lean on the constellation Eridanus to locate it since both constellations are very close to each other.

The easiest way to locate the constellation Caelum is by drawing an imaginary straight line from the second brightest star in the sky, Canopus; towards the constellation Eridanus; Caelum lies halfway between the two points.

The constellations bordering Caelum are Columba, Lepus, Eridanus, Horologium, Dorado, and Pictor.

In addition, Caelum belongs to the family of constellations discovered by Lacaille; these include Antlia, Circinus, Fornax, Horologium, Mensa, Microscopium, Norma, Octans, Pictor, Reticulum, Sculptor, and Telescopium.

The constellation Caelum officially contains 20 stars, of which 4 form the central figure of the constellation; these are Alpha Caeli, Gamma-1 Caeli, Beta Caeli, and Delta Caeli.

Alpha Caeli is the brightest star in the constellation with a magnitude of 4.44 is a binary star formed by a white-yellow star and a faint red dwarf of magnitude 12.5. Both components are separated by 6 arcseconds.

Caeli A: It has an effective temperature of 7100 K and is 5.2 times more luminous than the Sun. With a radius 50% greater than the solar radius.

Caeli B: The second component with a temperature of 3800 K has a mass of 0.3 solar masses, which entails a very low luminosity, just 1% of the Sun.

It is a white-yellow star of magnitude 5.04 with characteristics very similar to the brightest component of α Caeli.

Beta Caeli is a white-yellow main-sequence star of spectral type F3V with an effective temperature of 6856 K. Its luminosity is 6.4 times that of the Sun, and it has a radius 1.7 times greater than the solar radius.

Caelum is also home to a couple of deep-sky objects. Deep-sky objects often mean star clusters, nebulae (interstellar cloud bodies), or galaxies.

In the case of Caelum, because it is a small constellation, it only has two notable deep sky bodies. These are:

It is the most notable deep-sky object in the constellation Caelum and consists of an irregular Seyfert galaxy; the Seyfert galaxies are one of the two largest groups of active galaxies along with quasars.

These galaxies have quasar-like nuclei (very luminous sources of electromagnetic radiation) with very high surface brightnesses.

It has been suggested that the central object of the galaxy HE0450-2958 is an ejected supermassive black hole.

It is one of the few planetary nebulae found in the galactic halo, concentrating its mass at 20,000 ± 14,000 light-years below the Milky Way's 1,000-light-year-thick disk.

• Caelum is a constellation located primarily in the southern hemisphere. The name of the constellation comes from Latin and means "Chisel."
• This constellation was first introduced in the 1750s by astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille.
• The constellation Caelum lies between 40° N and 90° S latitudes. The best month to observe the constellation is January.
• The easiest way to locate the constellation Caelum is by drawing an imaginary straight line from the second brightest star in the sky, Canopus; towards the constellation Eridanus; Caelum lies halfway between the two points.
• The brightest star in the Caelum constellation is Alpha Caeli (α Cae / HD 29875 / HR 1502), with an apparent magnitude of +4.44.
• The most notable deep-sky body in the constellation Caelum is the galaxy HE0450-2958.

1. https://www.universetoday.com/19672/caleum/
2. https://www.universeguide.com/con stellation/caelum
3. http://www.seasky.org/constellations/constellation-caelum.html
4. https://www.constellation-guide.com/constellation-list/caelum-constellation/