Lacerta
Origin
Lacerta is latin for ‘small lizard’. It is a faint constellation that was created in 1687 by the astronomer Johannes Hevelius. Its distinct, but faint W shape is often compared to its brighter northern hemisphere counterpart, Cassiopeia.
Bright Stars
Alpha Lacertae is a blue-white main sequence star of magnitude 3.8. It is an optical double star.
Beta Lacertae is far dimmer, a yellow giant of magnitude 4.4.
Photo of the constellation Lacerta 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
Lacerta
English name
The Lizard
Pronunciation
la-SIR-ta
Abbreviation
Lac
Notable Objects
NGC 7243 is an open cluster that is visible in small amateur telescopes. BL Lacertae is a galaxy with a highly variably active galactic nucleus. BL Lacertae was the first galaxy of this type discovered and similar objects are called BL Lac objects.
