Profile / Characteristics
| English translation | Latin declination and pronunciations | Size/ °² | # stars (visible) |
| the Table Mountain | Mensa – MEN-suh Mensae – MEN-see | 153 | 23 |
Main Star (brightest one):
| Designation | HIP number | name in IAU-CSN | brightness |
| α Men | HIP 29271 | Hoerikwaggo | 5.07 mag (V) |
Our (modern) Explanation
The moden constellation name is an abbreviation from Mons Mensae, Table Mountain. It contains part of the Large Magellanic Cloud which was giving it its name. As it originally referred to the Table Mountain in Cape Town, South Africa, Lacaille in the 1750s when staying in South Africa imagined the LMC similar to the so-called “Cape Cloud”, the cloud above the Table Mountain that covers the mountain like a table cloth and was used as a weather sign by contemporary navigators
Ancient Globes
Farnese Globe
Kugel Globe
Mainz Globe
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Ancient Lore & Meaning
Aratus
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Reference:
English translation by Douglas Kidd (1997).
Aratus: Phaenomena, Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries, Series Number 34
Pseudo-Eratosthenes
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References:
French translation by:
Jordi Pàmias i Massana and Arnaud Zucker (2013). Ératosthènes de Cyrène – Catastérismes, Les Belles Lettres, Paris
English version in:
Robin Hard (2015): Eratosthenes and Hyginus Constellation Myths with Aratus’s Phaenomena, Oxford World’s Classics
Early Modern Interpretation
For modern versions of ancient lore:
Ian Ridpath’s page on this constellation
Commentary
invented by Lacaille 1756
Contemporary
As one of their first tasks in the 1920s, the newly founded International Astronomical Union (IAU) established constellation standards. The Belgian astronomer Eugène Delporte was assigned to the task to define borders of constellations parallel to lines of declination and right ascension. They were accepted by the General Assembly in 1928. The standardized names and abbreviations had already been accepted in 1922 and 1925.
