The Southern Cross Constellation!

known as the Southern Cross is the smallest of the 88 modern constellations, but one of the most distinctive. It

is surrounded on three sides by the constellation Centaurus while to the south lies the Fly or (Musca). Ancient Greeks originally thought Crux was part of

Centaurus, but it was defined as a separate asterism in the 16th century after Amerigo Vespucci's expedition to

South America in 1501.

The Southern Cross, appearing on a number of flags and insignia. Due to precession of the equinox the stars comprising Crux were visible from the Mediterranean area in antiquity, so their stars had to be known by Greek astronomers. However, it was not regarded as a constellation of its own, but rather as part of Centaurus.

Vespucci mapped the two stars, Alpha Centauri and Beta Centauri as well as the stars of the Crux. Although these stars were known to the ancient Greeks, gradual precession of the equinoxes had lowered them below the European skyline so that they were forgotten there. For example at the latitude of Athens in 1000 B.C., Crux was clearly visible, although it was low in the sky However, by 400 A.D., most of the constellation never rose above the horizon for Athenians.

The separation of Crux to be a separate constellation is generally attributed to the French astronomer Augustin Royer in 1679. Other historians attribute the invention of Crux to Petrus Plancius in 1613, and that the constellation was later published by Jakob Bartsch in 1624. However, Crux had already been a well known southern asterism at least four centuries before it was promoted to an official constellation and published in the Seventeenth Century.