Lalande’s Quadrans Muralis
Quadrans Muralis was created by the French astronomer Joseph Jérôme de Lalande from a sprinkling of faint stars in the otherwise unoccupied region in the northern sky between the kneeling leg of Hercules, the head and arm of Boötes, and the body of Draco.
It first appeared as seen below under the French name Le Mural in the 1795 edition of the Atlas Céleste of Jean Fortin, which was edited by Lalande and Pierre Méchain. Its name was Latinized by the German astronomer Johann Bode in 1801 on his Uranographia star atlas. Bode also shrank the constellation slightly to avoid overlap with its neighbours.
(Image: Author’s collection.)
