Fact sheet
- Latin name
- Piscis Austrinus (PsA)
- Brightest star
- Fomalhaut (α PsA)
- Relative brightness
- 1.16 mag
- Hipparcos catalogue
- HIP 113368
- Area
- 245 deg² (rank: 60 out of 88)
- Right ascension
- 21h 27m 14s to 23h 06m 55s
- Declination
- -36° 27' 33'' to -24° 49' 30''
- Neighbouring constellations
- Aquarius, Capricornus, Microscopium, Grus, Sculptor
Visibility
The constellation Piscis Austrinus
Piscis Austrinus is a constellation of the southern hemisphere. It consists mainly of faint stars of the 4th magnitude and fainter. Its brightest star, the star Fomalhaut, is its very special highlight. It is by far the brightest star of the constellation and, as a star of the 1st magnitude, it is already visible to the naked eye. Its name comes from the Arabic "fam al-ḥūt" (mouth of the fish). Fomalhaut is only 25 light years away and is surrounded by a large ring of dust.
History
The constellation Piscis Austrinus is one of the 48 original constellations of Ptolemy, a mathematician, astronomer, astrologer and geographer of antiquity. Until the 17th century, it was a fairly large constellation. At the end of the 16th century, the Dutch astronomer Petrus Plancius formed the constellation Grus from many of these stars, and the German astronomer Johannes Bayer made it known in his celestial atlas “Uranometria” in 1603. The brightest star of the constellation Grus therefore originally belonged to the constellation Piscis Austrinus, and to this day it bears the name "Alnair" (the bright one from the fish's tail). In 1752, the French astronomer Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille also took stars from the constellation Piscis Austrinus to complete his constellation Microscopium.
Mythology
Atargatis was a Syrian goddess who is better known in Greek by the name Derceto. Derceto had a love affair with a young Syrian man. From this love affair, Derceto gave birth to her daughter Semiramis. However, Derceto could not bear the shame of an illegitimate child. She killed her lover and threw herself into a lake near Ascalon (Israel) with the intention of taking her own life. Before this, she had abandoned her daughter Semiramis on a rock. Semiramis was found and raised by the shepherd Simmas. She grew up to be a brave and very beautiful woman and later became the queen of Babylon. However, her mother Derceto had not died as planned when she jumped into the lake. She was rescued by a large fish and turned into a mermaid (half woman, half fish). Later, as a reward, the large fish was placed in the sky as the constellation Piscis Austrinus.
