- Howland Island (Wikipedia)
Howland Island (/ˈhaʊlənd/) is a coral island and strict nature reserve located just north of the equator in the central Pacific Ocean, about 1,700 nautical miles (3,100 km) southwest of Honolulu. The island lies almost halfway between Hawaii and Australia and is an unincorporated, unorganized territory of the United States. Together with Baker Island, it forms part of the Phoenix Islands. For statistical purposes, Howland is grouped as one of the United States Minor Outlying Islands. The island has an elongated cucumber-shape on a north–south axis, 1.40 by 0.55 miles (2.25 km × 0.89 km), and covers 1 square mile (640 acres; 2.6 km2).
- Al Nair (stars.astro.illinois.edu)
AL NAIR (Alpha Gruis). Directly south of Piscis Austrinus, the Southern Fish, is the modern constellation Grus, the Crane. Unlike the bright ancient constellations, the “moderns” were invented between around 1600 and 1800 either to name the figures of the deep southern sky that could not be seen from northern classical lands or to fill in the blanks among the brighter northern groups.
- Alpha Gruis (Wikipedia)
Alpha Gruis is the brightest star in the southern constellation of Grus. It is officially named Alnair; Alpha Gruis is the star’s Bayer designation, which is Latinized from α Gruis and abbreviated α Gru. With an magnitude of 1.74, it is one of the brightest stars in the sky and one of the fifty-eight stars selected for celestial navigation. Alpha Gruis is a single, B-type main-sequence star located at a distance of 31 pc.
