Fusion Image 6
Source: Vincenzo Coronelli, Celestial Globe Gores (Paris, 1693; reprint ca. 1800); History of Science Collections, University of Oklahoma Libraries
Object: Robert’s Quartet in Phoenix the Fire Bird; ESO/European Southern Observatory (CC-by)
Composite: The Sky Tonight, skytonight.org (CC-by)
Object description
These four interacting galaxies (NGC 87, NGC 88, NGC 89 and NGC 92) are in the process of colliding and merging. John Herschel discovered them in the 1830s. Halton Arp and Barry F. Madore included them in their 1987 Catalogue of Southern Peculiar Galaxies.
Constellation description
Phoenix the Fire Bird was one of eleven southern constellations created by Pieter Dirksz Keyser and Frederick de Houtman in 1596. The mythical Phoenix would end its life in a burning conflagration, only to rise once more from its ashes and live again. Like the Phoenix, Robert’s Quartet of galaxies also are a conflagration and burning, from which new stars will rise once more.
Source Description
Coronelli was an influential maker of celestial and terrestrial globes.
To make a globe, 24 pie-shaped map sections, called gores, would be hand-colored, cut out and glued onto a wood and paper-maché base. This gore was part of a set produced in 1693 to make a celestial globe three and a half feet in diameter. At the time, it was the largest and most accurate printed celestial globe.
Legends are in Greek, Latin, French and Italian.