Lacaille’s Pyxis
Lacaille depicted Pyxis under the French name la Boussole, with a magnetic needle and a rose indicating the main compass points. The compass lay above the stern of the ship Argo, next to the ship’s mast. Its brightest star, Alpha Pyxidis, near the point of the needle, is magnitude 3.7. This illustration comes from a copy of Lacaille’s original chart of the southern skies published in 1756 in the popular-level Atlas Céleste of Jean-Baptiste Fortin. Lacaille Latinized the constellation’s name to Pixis (sic) Nautica on the second edition of his chart, published in 1763; for a zoomable version of that edition, see here.
(Image: Author’s collection)
