Vela

Vela (Vel, sails) is a constellation in the southern sky. Its name is Latin for the sails of a ship, and it was originally part of a larger constellation, the ship Argo Navis, which was later divided into three or four parts, the others being Carina, Puppis and, according to some authorities, Pyxis.
With an apparent magnitude of 1.8, its brightest star is the hot blue multiple star Gamma Velorum, one component of which is the brightest Wolf-Rayet star in the sky. Delta Velorum (δ Vel, δ Velorum) and Kappa Velorum (κ Vel, κ Velorum), together with Epsilon Carinae (ε Car, ε Carinae) and Iota Carinae (ι Car, ι Carinae), form the asterism known as the False Cross. 1.95-magnitude Delta is actually a triple or quintuple star system.

Argo Navis was one of the 48 classical constellations listed by the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy, and represented the ship Argo, used by Jason and the Argonauts on their quest for the Golden Fleece in Greek mythology. German cartographer Johann Bayer depicted the constellation on his Uranometria of 1603, and gave the stars Bayer designations from Alpha to Omega. However, his chart was inaccurate as the constellation was not visible from the Northern Hemisphere.

Argo was more accurately charted and subdivided in 1752 by the French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille, forming Carina, Vela, Puppis and Pyxis. Despite the division, Lacaille kept Argo's Bayer designations (A Bayer designation is a stellar designation in which a specific star is identified by a Greek letter, followed by the genitive form of its parent constellation's Latin name. The original list of Bayer designations contained 1,564 stars). Therefore Carina has the Alpha, Beta and Epsilon, Vela has Gamma and Delta, and Puppis has Zeta, and so on.

Bordering constellations
Antlia | Pyxis | Puppis | Carina | Centaurus
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