Testudo
Authors: Susanne M Hoffmann
Testudo, the Tortoise, is one of the extinct early modern European constellations. It was located in modern Pisces.
Concordance, Etymology, History
Early modern astronomers invented many new constellations to fill gaps between the classical ones.
Origin of Constellation
Testudo is from Hill (1754) "Urania or a Compleat View of the Heavens"); see Barentine (2016)[1]
It became obsolete with the standardisation constellations by the IAU in the 1920s Delporte (1930)[2].
Transfer and Transformation of the Constellation
baretine ...
IAU Nomenclature
The IAU named the asteroid (16405) Testudo, original designator 1985 DA2. The main-belt asteroid located between Mars and Jupiter was discovered on 20 February 1985 by H. Debehogne in La Silla, Chile. The IAU WGSBN Bulletin 2024/ 4 #9 (p.13) explains the name:
Testudo is the name of the mascot of the University of Maryland (UMD). Students from UMD observed this minor planet in order to determine its rotation period, and the name represents how they came together for this research. UMD is home to the Small Bodies Node of NASA’s Planetary Data System.
The term was also proposed as a modern star name to keep the heritage of the constellation, but could not be used as it is already an asteroid name. There is, however, a traditional Chinese constellation of a River Turtle, Bie (鳖), which was used as a modern star name.
Mythology
no mythology
Weblinks
- Wikipedia entry on [Testudo (genus)]
- IAU WGSBN
- Testudo in WikiData
- Asteroid in the French Wikipedia
References
- References (general)
- ↑ John C. Barentine (2016). Uncharted Constellations: Asterisms, Single-Source and Rebrands, Springer Nature, published in association with Praxis Publishing, Chichester, UK p.193-195, Fig. B.14.
- ↑ Delporte, Eugène, Délimitation scientifique des constellations (tables et cartes) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1930) -- published on behalf of the International Research Council of the International Astronomical Union.
