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Robur Carolinum

This constellation was devised by Edmond Halley in 1678 as a patriotic gesture to Charles II who was king of England at the time.

Halley sailed to the island of St Helena in the south Atlantic Ocean in 1676 to observe the southern stars. He presented his results to the Royal Society in London on his return in 1678 and the following year published his catalogue of southern stars, Catalogus Stellarum Australium, with an accompanying map.

Halley described his new constellation as being a “perpetual memory” of the King. Sadly, Robur Carolinum (or 'Charles' Oak') was rejected by the French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille, who mapped the southern stars more comprehensively 75 years after Halley, and most astronomers followed suit, although Bode included it on his atlas of 1801 as Robur Caroli II.

 

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