Volans
What is Volans?
Constellations· Southern summer–autumn · between Canopus and Crux. A flying fish that navigators watched leaping from tropical seas. Small stars below Carina trace the fish, and gamma Volantis is a colourful double star for small telescopes.
📍 Visible from where you are right now — computed in your browser
bearing · altitude · rise time · best time tonight
Where Volans is in your sky right now: https://nowsky.org/solar/sky?sel=con:Volans — location and time set automatically, no login.
Stars of the figure
| Star | Magnitude |
|---|---|
| Beta Volantis | 3.8 |
| Gamma Volantis | 3.8 |
The 2 brightest of the 2 stars used in the figure (1 lines). Lower magnitude means brighter.
Constellation basics
| Season | Jan–Mar evenings; never visible from Korea |
|---|---|
| Brightest star | β Volantis, mag 3.8 |
| How to find | south of Carina, east of the Large Magellanic Cloud |
| Area rank | 76th of 88 |
Figures are representative approximations. Source: compiled from NASA and IAU public data.
Frequently asked
- When can I see Volans?
- Jan–Mar evenings; never visible from Korea.
- How do I find Volans?
- south of Carina, east of the Large Magellanic Cloud.
- What is the brightest star in Volans?
- Beta Volantis, magnitude 3.8.
- Where is Volans in the sky right now?
- Open the sky view for your location and time and it shows the position in the sky right now.
The ring galaxy AM 0644-741 in Volans
Three hundred million light-years away in the direction of Volans is an object that looks less like a galaxy than a ring. AM 0644-741 is a blue ring 150,000 light-years across wrapped, off-centre, around a yellow nucleus. A small galaxy punched straight through this spiral, sending a ripple outward, and where the ripple passed the gas was compressed into a burst of star formation.
The ring is still expanding, and in about 300 million years it is calculated to disperse and let the galaxy settle back into a disturbed spiral. Hubble chose it for its 14th-anniversary image in 2004, which made it widely known. Beyond the constellation of a fish leaping from the water, the ripple left by one galaxy passing through another is still spreading.
The constellation in depth
Volans is one of the twelve southern constellations created from the Dutch navigators' voyages of the 1590s, honouring the flying fish they met on the East Indies route. In Bayer's atlas of 1603 it is drawn being chased by the neighbouring Dorado, the swordfish, so the two constellations form a single scene. Its original name was Piscis Volans, the flying fish. It ranks 76th of the 88 constellations in area.
Beta Volantis, the brightest star at magnitude 3.8, is an orange giant. Gamma Volantis pairs a yellow giant with a white companion, a pretty colour contrast in small telescopes, and epsilon Volantis is also a double. In this direction lies NGC 2442, the Meathook Galaxy, a distorted spiral with a hooked arm. A telescope of moderate size is needed to see the galaxy well.
At declinations of −64° to −75° it cannot be seen from Korea. From the southern hemisphere, look between Canopus and the Southern Cross, below Carina, on January to March evenings. In the Sky view, set Sydney or Cape Town on a February evening and check east of the Large Magellanic Cloud. The constellation lines make the little fish easy to pick out.
Related
Figures are representative approximations. Simulated positions use J2000 mean elements.