Phoenix
2386 OBJECTSPhoenix is one of the 88 constellations the International Astronomical Union uses to divide the sky, a region in the southern sky, about 41 degrees across. Its boundary is a fixed line rather than a picture, so anything inside it belongs to it whether or not it forms part of the figure the name refers to. This catalogue holds 2386 objects there.
Phoenix holds 2386 catalogued objects: 1430 stars, 918 galaxies, 34 exoplanets, 2 neutron stars, 1 catalogued object, 1 black hole.
[
THE FAMOUS ONES
] 1 ENTRIESNAME
CLASS
MASS
DISTANCE
MAG
CONSTELLATION
HLX-1★
Intermediate-mass black hole
2×10⁴ M☉
290.0 Mly
—
Phoenix
[
BRIGHTEST OBJECTS
] 12 SHOWNNAME
CLASS
MASS
DISTANCE
MAG
CONSTELLATION
Ankaa
K0.5IIIb orange giant
—
84.72 ly
2.40 V
Phoenix
β Phe
G8III yellow giant
—
—
3.32 V
Phoenix
γ Phe
M0III red giant
—
233.6 ly
3.41 V
Phoenix
ε Phe
K0III orange giant
—
144.2 ly
3.88 V
Phoenix
δ Phe
G8.5IIIb yellow giant
—
142.1 ly
3.93 V
Phoenix
κ Phe
A5IVn white subgiant
—
77.66 ly
3.93 V
Phoenix
Wurren
B6V+B9V blue-white main-sequence star
—
298.7 ly
3.94 V
Phoenix
η Phe
A0IV white subgiant
—
246.3 ly
4.36 V
Phoenix
ψ Phe
M4III red giant
—
341.9 ly
4.39 V
Phoenix
μ Phe
G8III yellow giant
—
245.8 ly
4.59 V
Phoenix
ι Phe
ApSrCrEu white star
—
248.8 ly
4.69 V
Phoenix
HD 222095
A1/2V white main-sequence star
—
200.2 ly
4.74 V
Phoenix
[
COMMON QUESTIONS
] 8 ANSWERED- Where in the sky is Phoenix?
- Its boundary is centred near right ascension 1h 07m, declination −49.3°. It stands at its highest around midnight in earlyOctober, which puts it in the evening sky for the two months after that and behind the Sun half a year later.
- Can I see it from where I live?
- Every part of Phoenix clears the horizon from latitudes between the south pole and 20° N. Outside that band some or all of the region never rises at all, whatever the time of year — a constellation is fixed on the sky, and it is your latitude that decides how much of the sky you get.
- What is the brightest thing in it?
- The brightest catalogued object in Phoenix is Ankaa, at apparent magnitude 2.40 (V). That is apparent brightness — how it looks from Earth — so it mixes how much light a thing gives off with how far away it is, and the brightest object in a region is rarely the most interesting one.
- How are the stars in it named?
- The brightest carry Greek letters, assigned by Johann Bayer in 1603 roughly in order of brightness and followed by the Latin genitive of the constellation's name. Fainter stars take a number from John Flamsteed's catalogue, and fainter still a designation from whichever survey recorded them.
- What exactly are the boundaries?
- Lines of constant right ascension and declination, drawn by Eugène Delporte for the IAU in 1930 and referred to the sky as it stood in 1875. Precession has tilted the sky against them since, which is why the boundaries on a modern chart are very slightly askew.
- Are the stars in Phoenix actually near each other?
- Almost never. The stars in a constellation lie at wildly different distances and are not related to one another in any way — the pattern is a line of sight from one particular planet. Two stars that look adjacent can be a hundred times further apart than either is from the Sun.
- What is the difference between a constellation and an asterism?
- A constellation is one of the 88 regions the IAU recognises, with a fixed boundary and an official name. An asterism is any memorable pattern that is not one — the Plough inside Ursa Major, the Summer Triangle drawn across three constellations, the Great Square shared between two.
- Why are the names in Latin?
- Because the list was assembled in Latin. Forty-eight of them come down from Ptolemy's catalogue of the second century, and the other forty were coined between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries to fill the southern sky and the gaps. The genitive form is what star names use: Alpha Orionis means the alpha star of Orion.