Phoenix
Origin
Phoenix is a minor constellation in the southern sky, and is somewhat faint to the naked eye. Phoenix is the mythical bird that periodically regenerates. Phoenix is part of the “southern bird” constellations along with Grus, Pavo and Tucana.
Bright Stars
Ankaa is the brightest star in the constellation. It is an orange giant of apparent visual magnitude 2.37 located 77 light years from Earth. Beta Phoenicis is a double star with components shining at magnitudes 4.0 and 4.1 for a total brightness of 3.3. The stars are separated by about 17 arc seconds making them resolvable in small telescopes. Zeta Phoenicis is an eclipsing binary star that varies in brightness from magnitude 3.9 to 4.4 with a period of 1.7 days.
Photo of the constellation Phoenix 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
Phoenix
Pronunciation
FEE-nix
Abbreviation
Phe
Notable Objects
Phoenix is out of the plane of the Milky Way and has no notable star clusters and only faint galaxies.
