- Mensa (constellation) (Wikipedia)
Mensa is a constellation in the Southern Celestial Hemisphere near the south celestial pole, one of fourteen constellations drawn up in the 18th century by French astronomer Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille. Its name is Latin for table, though it originally commemorated Table Mountain and was known as “Mons Mensae”. One of the eighty-eight constellations designated by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), it covers a keystone-shaped wedge of sky 153.5 square degrees in area. Other than the south polar constellation of Octans, it is the most southerly of constellations and is observable only south of the 5th parallel of the Northern Hemisphere.
- Star Tales - Mensa (ianridpath.com)
A small, faint constellation of the far southern sky invented by the French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille to commemorate Table Mountain near Cape Town, South Africa, from where he catalogued the southern stars in 1751–52. Lacaille originally gave it the French name Montagne de la Table on the first version of his planisphere published in 1756 but this was Latinized to Mons Mensae on the second edition of 1763. In 1844 the English astronomer John Herschel proposed shortening it to Mensa. Francis Baily adopted this suggestion in his British Association Catalogue of 1845, and it has been known as Mensa ever since.
