Antlia

Authors: Susanne M Hoffmann

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Antlia star chart (IAU and Sky & Telescope magazine, Roger Sinnott & Rick Fienberg).

One of the 88 IAU constellations. The constellation was invented by Lacaille in the 1750s.

Etymology and History

Lacaille on Antlia 1752

Ian Ridpath's Star Tales:

Antlia is one of the constellations of the southern sky introduced by the French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille on his map of 1756. Lacaille originally called the constellation la Machine Pneumatique but Latinized this to Antlia Pneumatica on the second edition of the map published in 1763. Following a suggestion by John Herschel, the English astronomer Francis Baily shortened its name to just Antlia in his British Association Catalogue of 1845, and it has been known as that ever since.

Lacaille depicted it as the single-cylinder type of pump used by the French physicist Denis Papin during the early 1670s for his experiments on vacuums, published as Expériences du Vuide in 1674. In 1675 Papin moved from Paris to London where he worked with the Irish physicist Robert Boyle. Here Papin developed the more efficient double-cylinder type of pump, and it is one of these later types of pump that was illustrated by Johann Bode in his Uranographia star atlas of 1801 (below). An air pump of this type is seen in action in the famous painting titled An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump by Joseph Wright of Derby (1768).

Historical Background

The constellation was invented in the 18th century. At that time, science was flourishing in Europe. Academies and scientific societies were founded – following the British Royal Society in 1660, similar foundations were established throughout Europe. International cooperation was strengthened as scientists exchanged ideas, organised joint observation campaigns such as the measurement of the transits of Venus in 1661 and 1669, and collected data in one place (Paris). Scientists also collaborated in societies across national and linguistic boundaries, so that new discoveries spread rapidly. Experiments laid the foundations for modern thermodynamics.

Among the numerous technical inventions of the time was the vacuum pump. In 1654, Otto von Guericke demonstrated to an impressed audience in Magdeburg the power of air pressure holding two hemispheres together. They had previously been pumped free of air using a vacuum pump. This invention in turn inspired experiments with steam. The boiling process under high pressure was investigated, leading to the invention of the precursor to the pressure cooker. Both the vacuum pump for pumping out air and the pump for letting air into submarines or diving helmets may have been inspired by this idea.

The fact is that the constellation was defined by Nicolas Louis de la Caille. Between 1750 and 1754, he worked at the Cape of Good Hope, where he surveyed the land as a geodesist and the sky as an astronomer. In the Mémoires de l'Académie Royale des Sciences, he wrote in 1756 that the device known as the ‘pneumatic machine’ was symbolic of experimental physics. It is therefore a celestial monument to a subject.

Origin of Constellation

Various types of historical air pumps

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  The air-pump of Otto von Guericke (1654). (This file is from Wikimedia Commons and may be used by other projects. Wellcome Trust, UK)
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  Boyle's first air pump (1660s). (This file is from Wikimedia Commons and may be used by other projects: Wellcome Trust UK)
• 
  Vacuum Pump, ~1700 Dresden, Germany (Thomas Quine 2010). (This file is from Wikimedia Commons and may be used by other projects.)

Transfer and Transformation of the Constellation

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  Antlia (Lacaille (1756).
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  Antlia in Bode (1782)
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  Antlia in Goldbach (1799)
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  Antlia in Bode (1801), This file is from Wikimedia Commons and may be used by other projects.

Mythology

There is no mythology.

All HIP Stars within this constellation

		test
1	RA	DEC	mag
2
3

HIP 53502,HIP 46515,HIP 51172,HIP 46515,HIP 47039,HIP 47627,HIP 48587,HIP 47919,HIP 49264,HIP 49434,HIP 49165,HIP 49428,HIP 48926,HIP 49418,HIP 50030,HIP 50075,HIP 49670,HIP 49769,HIP 49943,HIP 49950,HIP 50234,HIP 50641,HIP 50525,HIP 51937,HIP 51530,HIP 52022,HIP 52273,HIP 52151,HIP 52324,HIP 52550

References

• References (general)
• References (Babylonian)
• References (ancient Greco-Roman)
• References (medieval)