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TUCANA
The Toucan
Tucana - Nicolas Lacaille, 1754
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Tucana, named for the large billed tropoical bird, the toucan, was one of twelve southern constellations introduced by Dutchman Fredrick de Houtman in 1603, following an expedition to the Indonesian island of Sumatra in the Indian Ocean. The constellation in its entirety is not visible above 13 degrees north latitude, but if you're far enough south, you'll be able to see one of the sky's true wonders: the Small Magellanic Cloud, otherwise known as NGC 292. To find Tucana, look for the brilliant first magnitude star Acherner, in the constellation Eridanus just to the east.
The small and large Magellanic clouds were named after the Portugese explorer, Ferdinand Magellan, who observed them in 1519, as he was making history by sailing around the entire globe. In the ESO image below the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is in the lower left, and the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) in the upper right. Beside the SMC is the globular cluster NGC 104. It is the second largest globular cluster in the sky (after Omega Centauri), containing millions of stars. The cluster is 120 light years across, and 16,700 light years away. With a magnitude of 4.0, it is also the second brightest globular cluster in the sky, easily visible with the naked eye. It is so big and bright it was first named as a star, and is still known as Tucanae 49.
Below is a close-up of the SMC. It is an irregular dwarf galaxy, containing hundreds of millions of stars, and only 210,000 light years away, the second closest galaxy to Earth. At the top of the image is NGC 362, a globular cluster 28,000 light years away with a magnitude of 6.6.
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