Constellation, PsA
Piscis Austrinus: the Southern Fish
Piscis Austrinus covers 246 square degrees of sky, the 60th largest of the 88. Its brightest star is Fomalhaut. It is best placed in the evening sky in October.
Show Piscis Austrinus in the live sky
Piscis Austrinus at a glance
| Fact | Value |
|---|---|
| IAU abbreviation | PsA |
| Meaning | the Southern Fish |
| Pronounced | PICE-iss (PISS-iss) aw-STRY-nus |
| Genitive, used in star names | Piscis Austrini (for example a Bayer name such as α Piscis Austrini) |
| Area | 246 square degrees, number 60 of 88 by size |
| Stars to magnitude 6 in our catalogue | 26 |
| Brightest star | Fomalhaut, magnitude 1.2 |
| Best seen | Evenings in October, when it is highest at 9 pm |
| Declination range | -36° to -25° |
| Borders | Grus, Aquarius, Capricornus, Sculptor, Microscopium |
Where on Earth you can see Piscis Austrinus
Piscis Austrinus spans declinations -36° to -25°. Every part of it rises above the horizon at some moment for observers between latitudes 90°S and 54°N. Some of it can be seen from latitudes 90°S to 65°N. South of 65°S none of it ever sets. This is geometry only: it ignores haze, hills and buildings near the horizon.
From six cities
| City | Latitude | Visibility | Middle at its highest |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pune | 18.5°N | All of it rises | 42° |
| New York | 40.7°N | All of it rises | 19° |
| London | 51.5°N | All of it rises | 9° |
| Tromsø | 69.6°N | Never rises | below the horizon |
| Tokyo | 35.7°N | All of it rises | 24° |
| Sydney | 33.9°S | All of it rises | 86° |
Piscis Austrinus's named stars
These stars in Piscis Austrinus have names approved by the IAU Working Group on Star Names. Magnitude is brightness: a lower number is brighter, and the faintest stars seen with the naked eye on a dark night are about magnitude 6.
| Star | Designation | Magnitude | Distance (light-years) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fomalhaut | α Piscis Austrini | 1.17 | 25.1 |
Distances are about, from the HYG database (Hipparcos parallax), and "not known" means the catalogue has no reliable parallax for that star.
How these facts were found
The name, meaning and boundaries are the IAU's. Area, borders and the latitude ranges are computed from those boundaries; the brightest star and the star count come from a magnitude-6 star catalogue; star names are matched to the catalogue by Hipparcos number and checked by position. The month is when Piscis Austrinus's middle crosses the north-south line of the sky at 9 pm local solar time. See How we know.
Sources
- IAU: The Constellations. Names, meanings, pronunciations and boundaries
- IAU Working Group on Star Names. The official names of stars
- astronomy-engine. The MIT licensed library that does the calculations, run on the page's build machine and in the app
- HYG database v4.4 (astronexus). Distances, spectral types and luminosities, licence CC BY-SA 4.0