- Star Tales - Argo Navis (ianridpath.com)
Argo (Ἀργώ in Greek) is a constellation that is not so much disused as dismantled. It was one of the 48 constellations known to Greek astronomers, as listed by Ptolemy in the Almagest, but the 18th-century French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille found it large and unwieldy and so divided it into three parts: Carina, the Keel or body; Puppis, the Poop (i.e. stern); and Vela, the Sails. Were the three parts to be reunited, the resulting figure would be almost 28% larger in area than the current largest constellation, Hydra.
The Paris slums are a gathering-place for eccentric people — people who have fallen into solitary, half-mad grooves of life and given up trying to be normal or decent. Poverty frees them from normal standards of behaviour, just as money frees people from work. Some of the lodgers in our hotel lived lives that were curious beyond words.
George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London
- Argo Navis (Wikipedia)
Argo Navis (the Ship Argo), or simply Argo, is one of Ptolemy’s 48 constellations, now a grouping of three IAU constellations. It is formerly a single large constellation in the southern sky. The genitive is “Argus Navis”, abbreviated “Arg”. Flamsteed and other early modern astronomers called it Navis (the Ship), genitive “Navis”, abbreviated “Nav”.