Grus
Origin
Grus is a constellation in the southern sky that can be seen low in the south from mid-northern latitudes. Grus is Latin for crane. Grus was created by Dutch-Flemish astronomer Petrus Plancius and first appeared on a celestial globe in 1598. The stars that form Grus were previously part of Piscis Asustinus.
Bright Stars
The brightest star in Grus is Alpha Gruis, commonly known as Alnair, a blue-white star shining at magnitude 1.7 and 107 light-years from Earth. Tiaki (Beta Gruis) is a red giant 180 light-years from Earth. Tiaki varies in brightness from magnitude 2.0 to 2.3. Al Dhanab (Gamma Gruis) is a white subgiant shining at magnitude 3.0 and 211 light-years from Earth. Delta Gruis is an optical double star with two components separated by 45 arcseconds.
Photo of the constellation Grus 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
English name
Grus
Pronunciation
GROOS
Abbreviation
Gru
Notable Objects
Grus lacks bright objects but is home to some galaxies suitable for larger telescopes. Four interacting galaxies in close proximity to each other form the Grus Quartet. These include NGC 7552, NGC 7590, NGC 7599, and NGC 7582. NGC 7424 is a barred spiral galaxy shining at magnitude 10.4.
