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Star Lore Lochium Funis Log and Line

Lochium Funis is a now obsolete constellation in the southern hemisphere, created in 1801 by Johann Elert Bode. In 1801, German astronomer Johann Elert Bode published a large star atlas called Uranographia sive astrorum. The atlas marked the climax of an epoch of artistic representation of the constellations. Among the more than 100 constellations presented were four personally developed by Bode. Honores Friderici, created in 1787 honored Bode's patron, Prussian King Frederick the Great. The other three, first shown in Uranographia, celebrated the age of enlightenment and discovery.

In 1763, French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille introduced fourteen new constellations in the southern sky. One of them was Pyxis Nautica, meaning Nautical Compass, created out of faint "unused" stars within Argo Navis. Reasoning that a compass showed a ship's direction, while a log displayed its speed, Bode created the constellation Lochium Funis, the Log and Line coiled around the compass. The main stars used for this constellation were w and k2 velorum and θ, κ and η Pyxidis (using today's designations).

Pyxis Nautica and Lochium Funis in Uranographia

A traditional ship's log consists of a wooden board attached to a log-line that has a number of knots at uniform intervals. Counting the number of knots passing through a sailor's hands in a given time determined the speed of the vessel (and became the root of the unit "knots" for nautical miles per hour). In his publications, Bode treated both constellations, Pyxis Nautica and Lochium Funis as a combined item. In 1922, the IAU accepted Pyxis as one of the official 88 constellations, while the stars of Lochium Funis were reunited with the constellations Pyxis and Vela. Sources: Wikipedia, Ian Ridpath, SkyEye

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