Former constellation
Map of the obsolete constellation Quadrans Muralis in relation to the modern constellations
Quadrans Muralis can be seen at the top left of this 1825 star chart from Urania's Mirror .
Quadrans Muralis (Latin for mural quadrant ) was a constellation created by the French astronomer Jérôme Lalande in 1795. It depicted a wall-mounted quadrant with which he and his nephew Michel Lefrançois de Lalande had charted the celestial sphere, and was named Le Mural in the French atlas.[ 1] It was between the constellations of Boötes and Draco , near the tail of Ursa Major ,[ 2] containing stars between β Bootis (Nekkar) and η Ursae Majoris (Alkaid).[ 3]
Johann Elert Bode converted its name to Latin as Quadrans Muralis and shrank the constellation a little in his 1801 Uranographia star atlas, to avoid it clashing with neighboring constellations.[ 1]
In 1922, Quadrans Muralis was omitted when the International Astronomical Union (IAU) formalised its list of officially recognized constellations .[ 4]
Notable features
References
Constellation history
48 constellations listed by
Ptolemy after 150 AD
The 41 additional constellations added in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries
obsolete constellation names