Reticulum
Origin
Reticulum is a faint minor constellation in the southern hemisphere sky. Isaac Habrecht II first labeled a constellation named Rhombus in the same section of the sky on his celestial globe in 1621; in the 1750s Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille recreated the constellation as le Réticule Rhomboide, the Rhombid Reticle, in honor of the reticle in his telescope eyepiece. It is one of the twelve IAU constellations created by de Lacaille which honor the Age of Enlightenment and the tools that were created and used during this time.
Bright Stars
The brightest stars in Reticulum are Alpha Reticuli (apparent magnitude 3.33) and Beta Reticuli (apparent magnitude 3.84); these stars would just be barely visible through city-level light pollution. Of the 34 observed stars in Reticulum only 16 are visible to the human eye on a dark clear night with no light pollution.
Photo of the constellation Reticulum 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
Reticulum
Pronunciation
reh-TICK-yuh-lum
Abbreviation
Ret
Notable Objects
The galaxy NGC 1559 in Reticulum is smaller than the Milky Way. NGC 1559 is chock-full of star formation. NGC 1559 is a loner in the cosmos and is not a part of a galaxy cluster. In 2005 a type 1a supernova was discovered in the galaxy.
