Pictor

Pictor is a small constellation in the southern sky (declination −50° to −60°), located between the brilliant star Canopus and the Large Magellanic Cloud. Its name is Latin for painter, but it is in fact an abbreviation of its original name Equuleus Pictoris, the 'painter's easel', and it is normally represented as an easel. It was invented and named by Abbé Nicolas Louis de Lacaille in the 18th century. A faint constellation, Pictor's brightest star is Alpha Pictoris, which has an apparent magnitude of 3.3. Pictor also hosts RR Pictoris, a nova which brightened to magnitude 1.2 in 1925. Pictor has attracted attention in recent years because of its second-brightest star Beta Pictoris, 63.4 light-years distant, which is surrounded by an unusual dust disk rich in carbon, as well as an extrasolar planet. Another five stars in the constellation have been found to have extrasolar planets. Kapteyn's Star is a red dwarf located 12.76 light-years away that is likely to have been a member of the dwarf galaxy Omega Centauri swallowed up by the Milky Way. In 2014, it was found to have two super-Earths in orbit. HD 40307 is an orange dwarf that has six planets orbiting it, one of which — HD 40307 g — is a potential super-Earth in the habitable zone. ...