A small constellation in the southern celestial hemisphere, Horologium was first described by the French astronomer Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille in 1756. He visualised it as a clock with a pendulum and a second hand - hence the name. How he saw that from a small collection of stars is anyone’s guess.

Still, it’s impressive he saw it all, given that this constellation is made up of mostly faint stars and is relatively small, occupying only about 0.603% of our sky. Of the 88 modern constellations, Horologium ranks 58th in size.  The brightest star in the constellation is Alpha Horologii, with an apparent magnitude of 3.85. For context, our sun has a magnitude of -26.74 (the lower the figure, the brighter the star.)