- Star Tales - Sextans (ianridpath.com)
A faint constellation south of Leo, introduced by the Polish astronomer Johannes Hevelius in his star catalogue of 1687 under the name Sextans Uraniae and depicted in his star atlas published posthumously in 1690. It commemorated the instrument he used for measuring star positions, which was destroyed along with other instruments in a fire at his home in 1679. In his book Machina Coelestis (1673) he provided an engraving of himself displaying his sextant at his rooftop observatory, which was built over three adjoining properties he owned in the present-day Korzenna Street, Danzig (the modern Gdańsk).
- Venus (Wikipedia)
Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is a rocky planet with the densest atmosphere of all the rocky bodies in the Solar System, and the only one with a mass and size that is close to that of its orbital neighbour Earth. Orbiting inferiorly (inside of Earth’s orbit), it appears in Earth’s sky always close to the Sun, as either a “morning star” or an “evening star”. While this is also true for Mercury, Venus appears much more prominently, since it is the third brightest object in Earth’s sky after the Moon and the Sun, appearing brighter than any other star-like classical planet or any fixed star. With such a prominence in Earth’s sky, Venus has historically been a common and important object for humans, in both their cultures and astronomy.
- Sextans (Wikipedia)
Sextans is a minor equatorial constellation which was introduced in 1687 by Johannes Hevelius. Its name is Latin for the astronomical sextant, an instrument that Hevelius made frequent use of in his observations.