Constellation Chart

The Furnace

Fornax, "The Furnace", is another of those constellations created by Nicolas Louis de Lacaille in the mid-eighteenth century; he took several dozen fairly bright stars away from the middle of Eridanus and called the result Fornax Chemica. Alpha Fornacis is an easy visual binary, however the most noteworthy object in this constellation is the Fornax Galaxy Cluster. The asterism is a rather uninspired connection of its three brightest stars. In general the Bayer stars are fourth and fifth magnitude. The constellation of the Furnace lies on the banks of the River Eridanus; though it contains few bright stars visible to the eye, it is also home to a rich field of galaxies.

Galaxies In Fornax

NGC1097

NGC1097 is a medium sized bared galaxy in center of Fornax with a diameter of 10 arc minutes and a brightness of 10th magnitude. The bar is stretched in NW to SE, and very indistinct two arms are coiled up from tips of the bar structure. Although it's hard to distinguish from normal star, there is a companion dwarf galaxy of NGC1097A about 3 arc minutes northwest from the nucleus of NGC1097.

NGC 1360

At around southern lower skies in winter, a planetary nebula in north east of Fornax is NGC1360. The nebula has very dimmed ellipse and a long axis of about 7 arc minutes. NGC1360 has very low altitude in meridian transit at Japan. I have hardly chances to take the image of the faint planetary under good conditioned skies. But you may detect NGC1360 through large-sized telescopes as an indistinct lump of light when you're favored with dark and highly transparent atmosphere.

NGC 1365

A medium sized bared galaxy positioned at eastern edge of Fornax is NGC1365. The galaxy has a long axis of 10 arc minutes, the bared structure is stretched in east west direction, and clear two arms are coiled-up. NGC1365 can be seen in lower southern sky at Japan, it's fairly difficult to enjoy the galaxy under good conditioned atmosphere. It may all only dimmed central nucleus could be detected. There are uncountable indistinct outer galaxies around this celestial field. NGC1365 is the one of largest and easiest to find in those galaxies.

NGC 1398

NGC1398 is a small galaxy around north east of the constellation of Fornax. There are uncountable dimmed galaxies in this star field, and this galaxy looks like a compact elliptic galaxy through medium-sized telescopes. But actually the galaxy has very dimmed arms and classified in spiral. This picture shows you a bright nucleus and surrounding dimmed part in irregular. This minor galaxy has no striking coloration.

NGC 1427A

What happens when a galaxy falls in with the wrong crowd? The irregular galaxy NGC 1427A is a spectacular example of the resulting stellar rumble. Under the gravitational grasp of a large gang of galaxies, called the Fornax cluster, the small bluish galaxy is plunging headlong into the group at 600 kilometers per second or nearly 400 miles per second.

NGC 1316

NGC 1316 Large, bright galaxy. Easy at 110x. Slightly elongated with very bright core and stellar nucleus and the interacting galaxy pair of NGC 1316 and the much smaller NGC 1317 form a powerful radio source known as Fornax A

NGC 1317

NGC 1317 in the constellation of fornax The galaxies Co-ordinates are Right Ascension: 03 22 44.4 & Declination: -37 06 12. The magnitude of the galaxy is 3.2'X2.8.

Planetary Destinations In Fornax

HD 18445

Parent Star: HD 18445 (K2 V) in the constellation of Fornax is located at a distance of 83.92 Light Years from our Solar system Co-ordinates are Right Ascension: 02 57 13.19 & Declination: -24 58 30.4. The apparent Magnitude of the star is 7.84. The Inner Edge of Habitability Zone is 0.41 AU & the Outer Edge of Habitability Zone: 1.3 AU. Orbiting around HD 18445 is planet HD 18445 b is believed to be a brown dwarf and its exitence has been confirmed. The Planets Appearance is Dark brown haze. The planet is positioned at Earthlike Temperatures at a Mean Orbital Distance of 0.9 AU. The planet Orbits around the star every 554.67 Days and was discovered by Duquennoy and Mayor in 1991.