- Caelum (Wikipedia)
Caelum /ˈsiːləm/ is a faint constellation in the southern sky, introduced in the 1750s by Nicolas Louis de Lacaille and counted among the 88 modern constellations. Its name means “chisel” in Latin, and it was formerly known as Caelum Sculptorium (“Engraver’s Chisel”); it is a rare word, unrelated to the far more common Latin caelum, meaning “sky”, “heaven”, or “atmosphere”. It is the eighth-smallest constellation, and subtends a solid angle of around 0.038 steradians, just less than that of Corona Australis.
- Star Tales - Caelum (ianridpath.com)
This small and insignificant constellation in the southern hemisphere, representing an engraver’s chisel, is one of the inventions of the 18th-century French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille. He introduced it on his map of the southern stars published in 1756, where he gave it the French name les Burins (although in the accompanying star catalogue it was listed as Burin, singular). On the second edition of the map in 1763 this was Latinized to Caelum Scalptorium. In 1844 the English astronomer John Herschel proposed shortening the name to Caelum. Francis Baily adopted this suggestion in his British Association Catalogue of 1845, and it has been known as Caelum ever since.
