Talk:Puppis

Star System

Someone should write a text about the recent discovery of planets orbiting around Puppis. 200.178.22.27 13:55, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Poop Deck?

I removed some vandalism (Changing all instances of "Puppis" to "Poop" and was wondering what the symbolism of Puppis is. It is currently listed as "Poop Deck" but I am suspicious of that. Mathteacher1729 19:58, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

That's literally correct--Puppis is the "poop deck" or the stern of a ship. Perhaps we should change it to "stern" to stop tempting the vandals so much?--Todd 20:39, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism...

lol... poop. Well, regardless I killed a slight case of vandalism. It seems this page in particular suffers a good bit of vandalism; it's suspicious to me that the Poop disambiguation page links to this page (don't ask how I came about this =/). Is that actually suitable? Well, since the constellation actually has nothing to do with the "word" in general? Maybe if the link was removed it could divert a bit of the vandalism... Daisen¡i

Pyxis, Argo Navis & Malus

As I understood it, Pyxis was called Malus, the Mast, when it was part of Argo. Rothorpe (talk) 13:59, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Pyxis was never part of Argo. Pyxis was added by Lacaille as one of his 14 new constellations. Malus was a suggested alternative name for Pyxis but never caught on. I expect user Vgent can corroborate this if he is watching. Skeptic2 (talk) 15:34, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, I meant to say "Pyxis was called Malus, the Mast, when Argo was first divided". Rothorpe (talk) 15:43, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, that's still wrong. The name Malus wasn't suggested until nearly 90 years after Lacaille divided up Argo. Skeptic2 (talk) 17:34, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

The relation between Malus and Pyxis is indeed confusing and Allen's often-cited claim (Star Names, 1899, p. 64) that the latter constellation was made from the stars of the former constellation is not true. In order to understand their true relation you have to go back to Lacaille's original publications (which are now easy to find on the web).

In his first publication, read before the French Academy of Sciences in 1752 (and published in 1756), Lacaille divided Argo Navis into three parts ("le Corps", "la Pouppe" & "la Voilure"). In the same publication Lacaille also introduced his 14 new constellations including Pyxis. It is only in his 1763 publication (Coelum Australe Stelliferum) that we see that Lacaille later decided to divide Argo Navis into four parts: Carina, Malus, Puppis and Vela. However, he only used this four-part division in his star catalogue and in his star map he only used Carina, Puppis & Vela.

Both the star catalogue as the star map of course also feature Pyxis as a separate constellation, so they never were identical. Because Lacaille didn't use Malus on his 1763 star map, his subdivision Malus never became popular and in later star maps and catalogues its stars were usually absorbed into Vela. Francis Baily, in his 1847 definitive edition of Lacaille's star catalogue, still referred to Malus as a separate constellation and you can find some scattered references to individual stars asigned to the constellation Malus in the astronomical literature until the 1928 IAU revision of the constellation names and boundaries. AstroLynx (talk) 08:24, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree with most of this, but excuse me for raising one query... I looked at the 1763 edition of Lacaille's planisphere http://www.e-rara.ch/zut/content/zoom/197200?lang=en and did not find the names Carina, Puppis or Vela. As far as I can see, Lacaille used only the name Argo Navis on the chart. Equally, I looked through his 1763 catalogue and did not find Malus mentioned there either -- only Carina, Puppis and Vela (plus, of course, Pyxis as a separate entity). Am I missing something? Skeptic2 (talk) 12:40, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for being equally 'sceptical' about my claims - I fear that I have created further confusion in this matter. You are correct that Lacaille's 1763 star catalogue does not mention Malus, nor are his three divisions of Argo Navis marked on the star map. This evening I will have a closer look at my notes again and hopefully tomorrow I will be able to inform you who actually first created Malus. AstroLynx (talk) 16:30, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

I rather goofed yesterday with my 'research' on Malus/Pyxis and I should have looked more closely at the original sources myself - I relied too much on some notes on Lacaille's constellations made some years ago (which I now realize are incomplete and partly wrong). As you communicated to me yesterday (by private e-mail), you are completely right in stating that John Herschel (in 1844) was the first to introduce Malus and that it replaced Lacaille's Pyxis Nautica. Of the major 19th-century star atlases I only found one example, C. Behrmann's Atlas des südlichen gestirnten Himmels: Darstellung der zwischen dem Südpol und dem 20. Grad südlicher Abweichung mit blossen Augen sichtbaren Sterne nach ihren wahren, unmittelbar vom Himmel entnommenen Grössen (Leipzig: F.A. Brockhaus, 1874), which uses the name Malus on its charts. Best forget everything that I wrote here yesterday on this topic. AstroLynx (talk) 08:40, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

No problem. Thank you for the correction. I will add a note to the Pyxis entry in an effort to stop people from changing it again (but I bet someone will still try...). Skeptic2 (talk) 10:20, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Even though Malus was the former constellation that are now incorporated into Pyxis, Malus is also a caelregio that I made up. Caelregio is a group of constellations within a region of the sky and I have 11 caelregios listed, including Malus. Malus composed of five constellations including all three splitted from Argo Navis: Puppis, Carina, Vela, Pyxis, and Antlia. I have my wiki-site articles about Malus and ten other caelregios. BlueEarth (talk | contribs) 21:43, 9 August 2011 (UTC)