Indus (pronounced in-dus) the American Indian, was included in Bayer's Uranometria of 1603. The constellation is rather inconspicuous and it's brightest star is 3rd magnitude. There is little of interest for the casual observer in Indus with the possible exception of the binary star known as "Theta Indi". The components are magnitude 4.5 and 7 and are an attractive yellow and red in colour, seperated by 6 arc seconds.

Pavo (pronounced pah-voe) the Peacock, was introduced as a constellation in 1603 by German astronomer Johann Bayer in his Uranometria. Bayer's work was the first set of star charts where star positions were plotted accurately, and was based on observations of Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe. Pavo is circumpolar from latitude 35º and further south, culminating (ie.at its highest point) at the end of August at 9pm. The constellation's southern boundary joins that of Octans and is about 15º from the South Celestial Pole. Interestingly, Pavo shares the southern skies with four other exotic celestial birds, Apus - the bird of paradise, Grus - the crane, Phoenix - the phoenix and Tucana - the toucan.

The southern skies are graced with some of the finest globular clusters in the sky, and Pavo is blessed with one of them, NGC 6752 or Dunlop 295. Small telescopes will show delicate strings of stars eminating from the condensed centre. Although not an official name, some local amateur astronomers have appropriately dubbed NGC 6752 as the "Starfish Cluster'. From a subjective viewpoint the globular clusters 47 Tucanae, Omega Centauri and NGC 6656 or M22 in Sagittarius and NGC 6752 are probably some of the best examples of this class of object (a bit of southern bias here, an rightly so if you have ever seen any of these objects). Unmatched in elegance and beauty, these 'globulars' are particulaarly well suited to small and medium apertures.
The constellation is quite faint with no star brighter than 2nd magnitude. The brightest star Alpha Pavonis (or Peacock) is 2.12 magnitude but most prominent stars are around 3rd / 4th magnitude.
Pavo has a number of double and multiple stars, and virtually all are below naked eye visibility. One exception is Xi Pavonis, which is a colourful 4th magnitude orange star with an 8th magnitude companion in an excellent field. Many of the fainter pairs are worth tracking down. There are some real exquisite gems like Rmk25 (two 8th magnitude stars seperated by 7.2 arc seconds) and Rmk 26 (two equal 6.5 magnitude stars 2.3 arc seconds apart).

Telescopium (pronounceed tel-es-koe-pee-um) is another of those faint and insignificant constellation that were introduced by the French astronomer Nicolas Lacaille in 1752. He named it Tubus Astronomicus. As its name implies the constellation is meant to represent a telescope, but it bears little resemblance to one and very few amateurs would ever bother to point their telescopes towards this constellation. To Be fair, there is one object of note, the very pretty double star known as Dunlop 227. At 6.1 and 6.8 magnitude, the orange and white pair are seperated by 23 arc seconds.
 
 

Information sourced by

Quasar Publishing.P.O Box 85 Georges Hall NSW 2198

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