Norma

Origin

Norma is a small constellation in the southern celestial hemisphere between Ara and Lupus, one of twelve drawn up in the eighteenth century by French astronomer Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille and one of several depicting scientific instruments. Its name is Latin for normal, referring to a right angle.

Bright Stars

Gamma, Delta, Epsilon and Eta Normae make up a square in the field of faint stars. Gamma Normae is the brightest star with an apparent magnitude of 4.0. The constellation is very hard to see with the naked eye.

Photo of the constellation Norma 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