Apus
Origin
Apus is a small, relatively faint constellation in the far southern sky, within 7 degrees of the south celestial pole. Apus represents the bird of paradise and means “without feet”. Apus first appeared on a celestial globe created by Petrus Plancius in 1598.
Bright Stars
The brightest star, Alpha Apodis, shines at a magnitude of 3.8 and is an orange giant. Beta Apodis is also an orange giant shining at a magnitude of 4.2. Delta Apodis is a double star with the two components separated by 103 arcseconds. This is easy to split in binoculars but a naked eye challenge!
Photo of the constellation Apus produced by NOIRLab in collaboration with Eckhard Slawik, a German astrophotographer.
The annotations are from a standardized set of 88 western IAU constellations and stick figures from Sky & Telescope. Please find here a non-annotated version of the image.
Credit: E. Slawik/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/M. Zamani
Latin name
Apus
English name
Bird of Paradise
Pronunciation
APE-us
Abbreviation
Aps
Notable Objects
Some notable objects in Apus include:
- NGC 6101 is a 9th-magnitude globular cluster about 50,000 light-years away from Earth.
- IC4499 is a slightly fainter globular cluster.
