Sculptor
Origin
Sculptor is a faint constellation in the southern sky with no star brighter than 4th magnitude. Scupltor was first described by French astronomer Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille. It was originally called l'Atelier du Sculpteur (the sculptor's studio) but astronomer John Herschel proposed shortening the name to Sculptor in 1845. Sculptor is home to the south galactic pole.
Bright Stars
Alpha Sculptoris is the brightest star shining at magnitude 4.3 and 780 light-years from Earth. Beta Sculptoris is just a little dimmer at magnitude 4.38 and a distance of 178 light-years. Eta Sculptoris is a red giant variable star shining at magnitude 4.8 to 4.9, 460 light-years from Earth.
Photo of the constellation Sculptor 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
Sculptor
English name
The Sculptor
Pronunciation
SKULP-tor
Abbreviation
Scl
Notable Objects
The Sculptor Dwarf galaxy lies only 290,000 light-years away, making it a very nearby neighbor. It shines at magnitude 10.1 but is very large on the sky and has a low surface brightness. The Sculptor Galaxy (NGC 253) is an 8th-magnitude spiral galaxy about 11.4 million light-years away. The Sculptor Galaxy is visible through binoculars and one of the best targets for small telescopes. NGC 55 is a magnitude-7.9 barred spiral galaxy about 6.5 million light-years from Earth.
