Columba

Columba is a small, faint constellation created in the late sixteenth century. Its name is Latin for dove. It is located just south of Canis Major and Lepus. ... Stars. Columba is rather inconspicuous, the brightest star, Alpha Columbae, being only of magnitude 2.7. Alpha Columbae, a blue-white star, is traditionally called Phact, which means "ring dove". Alpha Columbae is 268 light-years from Earth. The only other named star in Columba is Beta Columbae, which has the name Wazn. It is an orange-hued giant star of magnitude 3.1, 86 light-years from Earth. Columba is the constellation that is at the solar antapex - the Earth (and Sun) is moving away from its direction as the solar system moves through space. The constellation contains the runaway star μ Columbae, which was probably expelled from the ι Orionis system. Deep-sky objects. There is one globular cluster in Columba, 7th-magnitude NGC 1851. It is 35,000 light-years from Earth and is resolvable in medium-sized amateur telescopes. [Columba (constellation). Wikipedia]