- 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.
- Orion Nebula (Wikipedia)
The Orion Nebula (also known as Messier 42, M42, or NGC 1976) is a diffuse nebula situated in the Milky Way, being south of Orion’s Belt in the constellation of Orion, and is known as the middle “star” in the “sword” of Orion. It is one of the brightest nebulae and is visible to the naked eye in the night sky with an apparent magnitude of 4.0. It is 1,344 ± 20 light-years (412.1 ± 6.1 pc) away and is the closest region of massive star formation to Earth. The M42 nebula is estimated to be 24 light-years across (so its apparent size from Earth is approximately 1 degree). It has a mass of about 2,000 times that of the Sun. Older texts frequently refer to the Orion Nebula as the Great Nebula in Orion or the Great Orion Nebula.
- 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”.