Tucana

Tucana is a southern constellation introduced by Dutch navigators in the late 16th century. It contains the Small Magellanic Cloud and is named for the toucan.

Small Magellanic Cloud: A dwarf galaxy orbiting the Milky Way and visible from the Southern Hemisphere. This prominent galaxy lies within Tucana’s constellation boundaries.
Petrus Plancius: A Dutch-Flemish astronomer and cartographer who helped establish several southern constellations. Plancius introduced Tucana on a celestial globe in the late sixteenth century.
Hydrus: A small southern constellation representing a water snake. Hydrus borders Tucana and shares the southern sky around the Magellanic Clouds.
Globular cluster: A roughly spherical collection of old stars held together by gravity. Tucana’s 47 Tucanae is among the sky’s brightest and richest examples.
Alpha Tucanae: A binary star system and the brightest star in the constellation Tucana. It is Tucana’s brightest star, though the Small Magellanic Cloud is more conspicuous.
Frederick de Houtman: A Dutch navigator whose star observations helped define southern constellations. His observations from southern voyages contributed stars used to map Tucana.
Grus: A southern constellation representing a crane, introduced in the late sixteenth century. Grus borders Tucana and belongs to the same era of southern constellation mapping.
Galaxy: A gravitationally bound system of stars, gas, dust, and dark matter. The Small Magellanic Cloud and Tucana’s dwarf galaxies are nearby galaxy systems.
47 Tucanae: A bright, dense globular cluster in the constellation Tucana. This globular cluster is one of the constellation’s major deep-sky objects.
Johann Bayer: A German celestial cartographer whose 1603 atlas Uranometria mapped the entire sky. Bayer’s atlas helped popularize Tucana and its neighboring southern constellations.

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