Pictor

Pictor
Constellation
Pictor
AbbreviationPic
GenitivePictoris
Pronunciation/ˈpɪktər/,
genitive /pɪkˈtrɪs/
SymbolismEasel
Right ascension4.53h - 6.85h
Declination−43° - −64°
QuadrantSQ1
Area247 sq. deg. (59th)
Main stars3
Bayer/Flamsteed
stars
15
Stars with planets6
Stars brighter than 3.00m0
Stars within 10.00 pc (32.62 ly)1
Brightest starα Pic (3.30m)
Messier objects0
Meteor showers0
Bordering
constellations
Caelum
Carina
Columba
Dorado
Puppis
Volans
Visible at latitudes between +26° and −90°.
Best visible at 21:00 (9 p.m.) during the month of January.

Pictor is a constellation in the Southern Celestial Hemisphere, located between the star Canopus and the Large Magellanic Cloud. Its name is Latin for painter, and is an abbreviation of the older name Equuleus Pictoris (the "painter's easel"). Normally represented as an easel, Pictor was named by Abbé Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille in the 18th century. The constellation's brightest star is Alpha Pictoris, a white main-sequence star around 97 light-years away from Earth. Pictor also hosts RR Pictoris, a cataclysmic variable star system that flared up as a nova, reaching apparent (visual) magnitude 1.2 in 1925 before fading into obscurity.[a]

Pictor has attracted attention because of its second-brightest star Beta Pictoris, 63.4 light-years distant from Earth, which is surrounded by an unusual dust disk rich in carbon, as well as two exoplanets (extrasolar planets). Another five stars in the constellation have been observed to have planets. Among them is HD 40307, an orange dwarf that has six planets orbiting it, one of which—HD 40307 g—is a potential super-Earth in the circumstellar habitable zone. Kapteyn's Star, the nearest star in Pictor to Earth, is a red dwarf located 12.76 light-years away that was believed to have two super-Earths in orbit in 2014, but their existence of these planets was disproven in 2021.[4] Pictor A is a radio galaxy that is shooting an 800,000 light-year long jet of plasma from a supermassive black hole at its centre. In 2006, a gamma-ray burstGRB 060729—was observed in Pictor, its extremely long X-ray afterglow detectable for nearly two years.

  1. ^ Chesneau, O.; Dessart, L.; Mourard, D.; Bério, Ph.; Buil, Ch.; Bonneau, D.; Borges Fernandes, M.; Clausse, J. M.; Delaa, O.; Marcotto, A.; Meilland, A.; Millour, F.; Nardetto, N.; Perraut, K.; Roussel, A.; Spang, A.; Stee, P.; Tallon-Bosc, I.; McAlister, H.; Ten Brummelaar, T.; Sturmann, J.; Sturmann, L.; Turner, N.; Farrington, C.; Goldfinger, P. J. (2010). "Time, spatial, and spectral resolution of the Hα line-formation region of Deneb and Rigel with the VEGA/CHARA interferometer". Astronomy and Astrophysics. 521: A5. arXiv:1007.2095. Bibcode:2010A&A...521A...5C. doi:10.1051/0004-6361/201014509. S2CID 10340205.
  2. ^ van de Kamp, P. (1953). "The Twenty Brightest Stars". Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. 65 (382): 30. Bibcode:1953PASP...65...30V. doi:10.1086/126523.
  3. ^ Lamers, H. J. G. L. M.; Stalio, R.; Kondo, Y. (1978). "A study of mass loss from the mid-ultraviolet spectrum of α Cygni (A2 Ia), β Orionis (B8 Ia), and η Leonis (A0 Ib)". The Astrophysical Journal. 223: 207. Bibcode:1978ApJ...223..207L. doi:10.1086/156252.
  4. ^ Bortle, Anna; Fausey, Hallie; Ji, Jinbiao; Dodson-Robinson, Sarah; Delgado, Victor Ramirez; Gizis, John (2021-05-01). "A Gaussian Process Regression Reveals No Evidence for Planets Orbiting Kapteyn's Star". The Astronomical Journal. 161 (5): 230. arXiv:2103.02709. Bibcode:2021AJ....161..230B. doi:10.3847/1538-3881/abec89. ISSN 0004-6256.


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