The Clock
| Abbreviation: | Hor |
| Genitive: | Horologii |
| Origin: | Nicolas Louis de Lacaille, 1756 |
| Fully Visible: | 90°S – 22°N |
French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille (1713–1762) travelled to South Africa in the mid-eighteenth century where he constructed an observatory and spent two years observing the southern skies. Not only did he catalogue nearly 10,000 southern stars, he also surveyed 42 'nebulous' objects and devised over a dozen new constellations. Originally named l'Horloge, this faint southern hemisphere constellation was later Latinised to Horologium.
Notable Features
| Visible Named Stars | ||
|---|---|---|
| The brightest star in the constellation, α Hor, is fourth-magnitude. None of the visible stars in this constellation have an official name. | ||
| Other Interesting Stars | ||
| GJ 1061 | This high proper motion star is far too faint to be seen by the naked eye. The main reason for its apparent speediness is its closeness to Earth. It is a tiny, red dwarf star, barely ten percent the mass of the Sun | |
| Deep Sky Objects | ||
| C87 | This is a globular cluster, visible only with optical aids. It was discovered in 1826 and is also catalogued as NGC 1261. | |
Copyright © 1995–2023 by L.M. Stockman and David Harper