While there is no famous book or movie exactly named “Under the Stars of Pictor: A Journey Through the Southern Sky,” it refers to Pictor, a real constellation. This name beautifully describes what it is like to explore the southern night sky.
Here is what you need to know about the actual constellation and the stargazing journey it represents. What is Pictor?
The Painter’s Easel: The word Pictor means “painter” in Latin. It was named to honor an artist’s easel and palette.
An 18th-Century Invention: Unlike ancient constellations, it does not come from Greek myths. A French astronomer named Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille created it in 1756. He mapped the southern skies and named constellations after tools of science and art.
Where It Sits: It is a small constellation in the far southern sky. It sits right next to the brilliant star Canopus and the Large Magellanic Cloud, which is a nearby galaxy. Cosmic Wonders Found There
Even though Pictor is faint and hard to see with just your eyes, it holds secrets that space telescopes love to study:
Beta Pictoris: This is the second-brightest star in the constellation. It is famous because it is surrounded by a massive disk of space dust. Scientists have caught planets forming inside this dust. It was one of the first times humans ever took a direct picture of an alien planet!
Pictor A: This is a giant galaxy far away. It has a supermassive black hole at its center that shoots out a spectacular stream of X-rays across space.
NGC 1705: A small, wildly shaped dwarf galaxy in Pictor. The Hubble Space Telescope has captured beautiful images of it exploding with the light of thousands of newborn stars. Journeying Through the Southern Sky Amazon.com
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