page_title: Indus (constellation)
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Indus (constellation) / History
caption_attribution_description: The "Southern Birds", Pavo, Phoenix, Grus, and Tucana from Johann Bayer's Uranometria of 1603, the first celestial atlas to include the southern constellations. Indus and Hydrus also appear.
context_page_description: Indus is a constellation in the southern sky first professionally surveyed by Europeans in the 1590s, namely Dutchmen, and mapped on a globe by Pieter Platevoet by early 1598 and thus included in Bayer's keynote, consolidated sky atlas of 1603. On average it is centred, that is to say its zenith, is over 25° south of the Tropic of Capricorn. South of the Tropic lie only four countries, the rest being parts of oceans and Antarctica and ten countries straddle the tropic but the bright right-angled triangle can be seen for most of the year from the Equator. It has a north-south elongated, complex scope and its other English direct translation of its name is sometimes seen in old writings, the Indian as it is in other European languages.
context_section_description: The constellation was created by Petrus Plancius who made a fairly large celestial globe from the observations of Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman. The first depiction of this constellation in a celestial atlas followed in Johann Bayer's Uranometria of 1603. Plancius portrayed the figure as a nude male with three arrows in one hand and one in the other, as a native, lacking quiver and bow. It is among the twelve constellations introduced by Keyser and de Houtman, which first appeared on  in 1598.
caption: Indus (top middle) in an extract from Johann Bayer's Uranometria, its first appearance in a celestial atlas.
exif: {}