Constellation Chart

Myth

Antlia is one of many constellations introduced by Nicolas Louis de Lacaille in the mid eighteenth century, designed to fill in the southern hemisphere. The constellation commemorates the air pump, which had been recently invented by Robert Boyle. Antlia is located in a rather bleak and lonely part of the southern hemisphere. It takes some imagination to find a "pump" here, not surprising perhaps, given the small selection of Bayer stars.

From 1665 to 1668 he lived in Oxford, and he worked with his assistant Robert Hooke to invent the air pump. He also studied the behavior of gases in some detail. This resulted in what we now call Boyle's Law: It states that at a given temperature, the pressure of a gas will vary inversely to the gas' volume.

In other accomplishments, he established that matter is made of a series of primary particles that combine to form corpuscles. Today, after a little more development, we call these things atoms and molecules.

Later in life, he continued his work, while living with his sister. He grew quite famous, and received many foreign visitors. He declined the presidency of the Royal Society of London in 1680. He endowed a series of lectures (called the Boyle Lectures, which continue to this day) with the goal of "proving the Christian Religion against notorious Infidels." By this, he meant the Roman Catholics. Boyle died in 1691 in London.

NGC2997

NGC2997 (Bennett 41b, the spiral galaxy at the bottom of the image) is one of Dreyer's remarkable objects. Described as very faint (mag. 10), very large (4'), it has a pronounced central condensation. Larger scopes should see knots in the spiral arms. Several galaxies hover around it, the brightest being NGC3001 (at the top, or north end, of the picture). It shines at mag. 12.3. The galaxy just to the north-west of NGC3001 is the 14.6 mag. ESO434-34.

The disc of NGC 2997 is inclined at about 45 degrees to our line of sight, revealing its internal structure and giving the galaxy an oval appearance. Seen face-on, NGC 2997 would look rather like Messier 83. Like most spirals, the galaxy has two prominent spiral arms, which appear to originate in the yellow nucleus, are peppered with bright red blobs of ionised hydrogen which are similar to regions of star formation in our own Milky Way. Within these gas clouds are produced the hot blue stars which generate most of the light in the arms of the galaxy. A much older population of yellowish stars are concentrated around the nucleus. This wide angle view emphasises that this beautiful galaxy is seen through the stars of our own galaxy, the Milky Way.

HD 93083

Parent Star: HD 93083 (K3 V) in the constellation of Antila is located at a distance of 94.26 Light Years from our Solar system Co-ordinates of Right Ascension: 10 44 20.9149 & Declination: -33 34 37.279. The apparent Magnitude of the star is 8.3. The Inner Edge of Habitability Zone is 0.38 AU & the Outer Edge of Habitability Zone: 1.2 AU and the estimated stellar lifespan of the star is 29154 million years. Orbiting around HD 93083is planet HD 93083 b the planet is believed to be a Sulfurous Cloud Jovian planet and its exitence has been confirmed. The planets appearance is Sulfur stained clouds of water or H2SO4. The planet is positioned at inner edge of Habitable Zone at Mean Orbital Distance of 0.477 AU and the estimated radius of the planet is 0.333 Jupiters 1. The planet Orbits around the star every 143.58 1 0.6 Days and was discovered by C. Lovis, M. Mayor, F. Pepe, D. Queloz, N.C. Santos, D. Sosnowska, S. Udry, W. Benz, J.-L. Bertaux, F. Bouchy, C. Mordasini, J.-P. Sivan in 2005.