Columba Constellation: The Ultimate Guide

Columba is part of the 88 modern constellations; It does not appear or have associated histories in ancient Western cultures because it was not visible in those regions.

In the case of Greek culture, when Ptolemy wrote the Almagest, it did not mention the constellation Columba nor did it appear on the celestial maps of the time.

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

In 1592 the cartographer Petrus Plancius first depicted Columba in the small celestial planispheres of his large mural map to differentiate the 'shapeless stars' from the large constellation Canis Major.

Columba is also shown on a smaller world map from 1594 and the first Dutch celestial globes.

Plancius named the constellation Columba Noachi meaning "Noah's Dove," referring to the dove that gave Noah the information that the Great Flood was receding. This name is found in celestial globes and star atlases of the early seventeenth century.

Later, astronomers would recognize the constellation only with the name Columba.

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

Columba currently covers an area of 270 square degrees and is, therefore, one of the minor constellations among the 88 modern constellations.

Columba resides in the first quadrant of the Southern Hemisphere (SQ1) between latitudes 45° N and 90° S, 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

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

Columba is not visible in regions above 45° N such as Canada, half of Europe such as the United Kingdom, Austria or Norway, and Russia, Greenland, and Alaska.

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

The constellation Columba is visible during winter in the Northern Hemisphere and summer in the Southern Hemisphere.

The constellation Columba is very faint, but it is located right in the middle of a group of very bright stars in the sky.

The easiest way to locate the constellation Columba is by drawing an imaginary straight line from the second brightest star in the sky, Canopus, to the star Rigel in the constellation Orion. Columba's constellation is in the middle of those two very bright stars.

The constellations bordering Columba are Lepus, Caelum, Pictor, Puppis, and Canis Major.

In addition, Columba belongs to the family of constellations of the celestial waters; these include Carina, Delphinus, Equuleus, Eridanus, Piscis Austrinus, Puppis, Pyxis, and Vela.

The constellation Columba officially contains 68 stars, of which 10 form the central figure of the constellation; these are Phact, Wezn, Ghusn al Zaitun, Epsilon Columbae, Eta Columbae, Gamma Columbae, Kappa Columbae, Lambda Columbae, Xi Columbae, and Theta Columbae.

Phact is the brightest star in the constellation Columba with an apparent magnitude of +2.65. It is 268 light-years from the Solar System.

It is a blue-white subgiant star of spectral type B7IVe with a surface temperature of 12,500 K. It is about 1000 times more luminous than the Sun. Its radius is seven times larger than the solar radius.

With an apparent magnitude of +3.12, Wazn is the second brightest star in the constellation of Columba and is located 86 light-years from Earth.

Wazn is an orange giant star of spectral type K2III with a surface temperature of 4535 K. It has a luminosity of 53 suns and a radius 12 times larger than the solar radius.

• μ Columbae, of spectral type O9.5V and very hot, since its surface temperature reaches 33 700 K. Also, it is a runaway star, moving directly away from AE Aurigae at more than 200 km/s. 
• AP Columbae, a young pre-main sequence star, is the closest star of this class to the solar system. It has an estimated age between 12 and 50 million years.

Columba is also home to several deep-sky objects. Deep-sky objects often mean star clusters, nebulae (interstellar cloud bodies), or galaxies.

In the case of Columba, because it is a small constellation, it only has star clusters and galaxies; some of them are:

It is a massive globular cluster that lies 39.5 kilo-light-years from the Sun and 54.1 kilo-light-years from the Galactic Center.

The cluster follows a very eccentric orbit across the galaxy.

It is a galaxy with an optical appearance that is quite chaotic due to the unbalanced distribution of dust and the disk of this galaxy.

NGC 1792 is very rich in neutral hydrogen gas, the ideal fuel for the formation of new stars, and in fact, provides the formation of new stars quickly.

• Columba is a constellation located primarily in the southern hemisphere. The name of the constellation Columba comes from Latin and means "Dove."
• The constellation Columba lies between latitudes 45° N and 90° S. The best month to observe the constellation is in February.
• The easiest way to locate the constellation Columba is by drawing an imaginary straight line from the second brightest star in the sky, Canopus, to the star Rigel in the constellation Orion. Columba's constellation is in the middle of those two very bright stars.
• The brightest star in the constellation, Columba, is Phact or Phakt (α Columbae /α Col/HD 37795), with an apparent magnitude of +2.65.
• The most notable deep-sky body in Columba's constellation is the globular cluster NGC 1851.

1. https://www.constellation-guide.com/constellation-list/columba-constellation/
2. http://www.seasky.org/constellations/constellation-columba.html
3. https://www.britannica.com/place/Columba-constellation
4. https://www.universetoday.com/20359/columba-constellation/