- Star Tales - Pavo (ianridpath.com)
The peacock is one of the 12 figures introduced into the southern skies at the end of the 16th century from the observations by the Dutch navigators Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman. Pavo seemingly represents not the common blue, or Indian, peacock commonly seen in parks but its larger, more colourful, and more aggressive cousin, the Java green peacock which Keyser and de Houtman would have encountered in the East Indies. Pavo was first depicted in 1598 on a globe by Petrus Plancius and first appeared in print in 1603 on the Uranometria atlas of Johann Bayer. As visualized by Plancius and Bayer the peacock had a more expansive tail, but its feathers were later trimmed by Lacaille to make room for his own invention Telescopium to the north.
- Pavo (constellation) (Wikipedia)
Pavo is a constellation in the southern sky whose name is Latin for “peacock”. Pavo first appeared on a 35-cm (14 in) diameter celestial globe published in 1598 in Amsterdam by Plancius and Jodocus Hondius and was depicted in Johann Bayer’s star atlas Uranometria of 1603, and was likely conceived by Petrus Plancius from the observations of Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman. French explorer and astronomer Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille gave its stars Bayer designations in 1756. The constellations Pavo, Grus, Phoenix and Tucana are collectively known as the “Southern Birds”.
