Argo Navis, or simply Argo, is one of Ptolemy's 48 constellations, now a grouping of three IAU constellations. It is formerly a single large constellation in the southern sky. The genitive is "Argus Navis", abbreviated "Arg". Flamsteed and other early modern astronomers called it Navis, genitive "Navis", abbreviated "Nav".
A Bayer designation is a stellar designation in which a specific star is identified by a Greek or Latin letter followed by the genitive form of its parent constellation's Latin name. The original list of Bayer designations contained 1,564 stars. The brighter stars were assigned their first systematic names by the German astronomer Johann Bayer in 1603, in his star atlas Uranometria. Bayer catalogued only a few stars too far south to be seen from Germany, but later astronomers supplemented Bayer's catalog with entries for southern constellations.
Carina is a constellation in the southern sky. Its name is Latin for the keel of a ship, and it was the southern foundation of the larger constellation of Argo Navis until it was divided into three pieces, the other two being Puppis, and Vela.
Eta Carinae, formerly known as Eta Argus, is a stellar system containing at least two stars with a combined luminosity greater than five million times that of the Sun, located around 7,500 light-years distant in the constellation Carina. Previously a 4th-magnitude star, it brightened in 1837 to become brighter than Rigel, marking the start of its so-called "Great Eruption". It became the second-brightest star in the sky between 11 and 14 March 1843 before fading well below naked-eye visibility after 1856. In a smaller eruption, it reached 6th magnitude in 1892 before fading again. It has brightened consistently since about 1940, becoming brighter than magnitude 4.5 by 2014.
The Royal Oak was the English oak tree within which the future King Charles II of England hid to escape the Roundheads following the Battle of Worcester in 1651. The tree was in Boscobel Wood, which was part of the park of Boscobel House. Charles told Samuel Pepys in 1680 that while he was hiding in the tree, a Parliamentarian soldier passed directly below it. The story was popular after the Restoration, and is remembered every year in the English traditions of Royal Oak Day.
A pole star or polar star is a star, preferably bright, nearly aligned with the axis of a rotating astronomical body.
The Carina Nebula or Eta Carinae Nebula is a large, complex area of bright and dark nebulosity in the constellation Carina, located in the Carina–Sagittarius Arm of the Milky Way galaxy. The nebula is approximately 8,500 light-years (2,600 pc) from Earth.
An asterism is an observed pattern or group of stars in the sky. Asterisms can be any identified pattern or group of stars, and therefore are a more general concept than the 88 formally defined constellations. Constellations are based on asterisms, but unlike asterisms, constellations outline and today completely divide the sky and all its celestial objects into regions around their central asterisms. For example, the asterism known as the Big Dipper comprises the seven brightest stars in the constellation Ursa Major. Another is the asterism of the Southern Cross, within the constellation of Crux.
Canopus is the brightest star in the southern constellation of Carina and the second-brightest star in the night sky. It is also designated α Carinae, which is Latinised to Alpha Carinae. With a visual apparent magnitude of −0.74, it is outshone only by Sirius.
The Homunculus Nebula is a bipolar emission and reflection nebula surrounding the massive star system Eta Carinae, about 7,500 light-years from Earth. The nebula is embedded within the much larger Carina Nebula, a large star-forming H II region. From the Latin homunculus meaning Little Man, the nebula consists of gas which was ejected from Eta Carinae during the Great Eruption, which occurred ~7,500 years before it was observed on Earth, from 1838 to 1845. It also contains dust which absorbs much of the light from the extremely luminous central stellar system and re-radiates it as infra-red (IR). It is the brightest object in the sky at mid-IR wavelengths.
Alpha Pavonis, formally named Peacock, is a binary star in the southern constellation of Pavo, near the border with the constellation Telescopium.
Omega Carinae, Latinized from ω Carinae, is a star in the constellation Carina. With a declination greater than 70 degrees south of the celestial equator, it is the most southerly of the bright stars of Carina, and it is part of a southern asterism known as the Diamond Cross. This star has an apparent visual magnitude of 3.3 and is located at a distance of about 342 light-years from Earth.
V382 Carinae, also known as x Carinae, is a yellow hypergiant in the constellation Carina. It is a G-type star with a mean apparent magnitude of +3.93, and a variable star of low amplitude.
HD 93205, or V560 Carinae, is a binary stellar system, in the Carina Nebula in the constellation Carina. It consists of two massive O-stars that revolve around each other in 6 days.
LHS 288 is a red dwarf around 15.8 light years from the Sun, the closest in the constellation Carina. It is far too faint to be seen with the unaided eye, with an apparent magnitude of 13.92.
Robur is Latin for "hard timber" or "oak", and, by metaphorical extension, "strength". It can refer to:
HR Carinae is a luminous blue variable star located in the constellation Carina. It is surrounded by a vast nebula of ejected nuclear-processed material because this star has a multiple shell expanding atmosphere. This star is among the most luminous stars in the Milky Way. It has very broad emission wings on the Balmer lines, reminiscent from the broad lines observed in the spectra of O and Wolf–Rayet stars. A distance of 5 kpc and a bolometric magnitude of -9.4 put HR Car among the most luminous stars of the galaxy.
A hypergiant (luminosity class 0 or Ia+) is a very rare type of star that has an extremely high luminosity, mass, size and mass loss because of its extreme stellar winds. The term hypergiant is defined as luminosity class 0 (zero) in the MKK system. However, this is rarely seen in literature or in published spectral classifications, except for specific well-defined groups such as the yellow hypergiants, RSG (red supergiants), or blue B(e) supergiants with emission spectra. More commonly, hypergiants are classed as Ia-0 or Ia+, but red supergiants are rarely assigned these spectral classifications. Astronomers are interested in these stars because they relate to understanding stellar evolution, especially star formation, stability, and their expected demise as supernovae.
NGC 2363-V1 is a luminous blue variable star in the star-forming region NGC 2363, at the far southwestern part of the irregular galaxy NGC 2366 in the constellation Camelopardalis, near the north celestial pole nearly 11 million light years away from our galaxy. It was discovered in 1996 by Laurent Drissen, Jean-René Roy, and Carmelle Robert while examining images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Planetary Camera 2.
Suhail, from Arabic: سهيل, is the common name of a number of stars typically seen near the southern horizon.
