Telescopium
Authors: Susanne M Hoffmann
One of the 88 IAU constellations. The constellation was invented by Lacaille in the 1750s.
Etymology and History
Origin of Constellation
In his commentary in 1756, Nicolas Louis de Lacaille writes only briefly and concisely, ‘the telescope or the astronomers' large glasses, suspended from a mast’. The constellation is depicted in this form on his map, with the mast extending to the bow of Sagittarius and the tail of Scorpius. Today, we draw the constellation smaller and without a mast.
For the inventor, it is about the telescope as an instrument, about the principle of magnifying the view into the distance. This distinguishes Lacaille's constellation from its modern namesakes – in particular the now abolished constellation ‘Herschel's Telescope’, which was intended to honour a particular astronomer. Like the political constellations, the constellations associated with personality cults have also been removed: Herschel's Telescope was intended to commemorate the discovery of the planet Uranus by a musician and amateur astronomer. The French constellation ‘le Messier’ was wonderfully ambiguous because it could be translated as ‘harvest guardian’ in German star charts, while the French academic community saw it as a monument to their colleague Charles Messier, who was the first to come up with the idea of creating a catalogue of ‘nebulae’ of then unexplained nature (star clusters, galaxies, galactic emission and reflection clouds). All these constellations were deleted in the 1920s. Lacaille's purely technical, impersonal constellation remained, but the mast was shortened.
