#alpha lacertae

[quiltofstars]

The constellation of Lacerta, the Lizard // E. Slawik/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/M. Zamani

Click below to read a little bit about this little guy as well as an annotated image to help you spot it!

Lacerta, which is Latin for "lizard", is a recent addition to the night sky. It was added in 1687 by the Polish astronomy Johannes Hevelius. There aren't a lot of bright stars in this part of the sky, so it wasn't recognized as a constellation by ancient astronomers. Hevelius originally intended to name it "Stellio" after the stellion, a lizard with star-like spots found around the Mediterranean.

There are only three named stars in this constellation. In order of brightness, they are:

Stellio (α Lacertae), the brightest star in Lacerta. It is a solitary blue-white star about 103 light years from Earth. Its name honors Hevelius' original name for Lacerta.

Tengshe (V424 Lacertae) is a red supergiant star about 2,300 light years from Earth. Its name comes from the Chinese word Tengshe (螣蛇) meaning "flying serpent." This was a Chinese constellation that shared the same part of the sky as Lacerta.

Taika (HAT-P-40) is a yellow-white star about 1,515 light years away. It has one confirmed exoplanet orbiting it, about half the mass of Jupiter, named Vytis. Both names were given by the people of Lithuania: Taika is the Lithuanian word for "peace" and Vytis is the symbol for the Lithuanian coat of arms.