Apus

Origin

Apus is a small, relatively faint constellation in the far southern sky, within 7 degrees of the south celestial pole. Apus represents the bird of paradise and means “without feet”. Apus first appeared on a celestial globe created by Petrus Plancius in 1598.

Bright Stars

The brightest star, Alpha Apodis, shines at a magnitude of 3.8 and is an orange giant. Beta Apodis is also an orange giant shining at a magnitude of 4.2. Delta Apodis is a double star with the two components separated by 103 arcseconds. This is easy to split in binoculars but a naked eye challenge!

Photo of the constellation Apus 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