Circinus
Origin
Circinus represents a drafting compass and was invented in the 1750s by Nicolas Louis de Lacaille. It is very small and has few notable objects.
Bright Stars
The brightest stars in Circinus are Alpha Circini (magnitude 3.41), Beta Circini (magnitude 4.16), and Gamma Circini (magnitude 4.51).
Photo of the constellation Circinus 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
Circinus
English name
The Drawing Compass
Pronunciation
SIR-sin-us
Abbreviation
Cir
Notable Objects
One object in Circinus that can be seen with a telescope or binoculars is the open cluster NGC 5823, which covers an area about half that of the full Moon and is about magnitude 8.5.
