Image: Wikimedia Commons

Hydrus

Constellation in the southern celestial hemisphere

Astronomical objectconstellationQ10416

Also known as Hyi · Hydri · the Water Snake

Overview

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia · Read full article · Text CC BY-SA 4.0

Hydrus is a small constellation in the deep southern sky. It was one of twelve constellations created by Petrus Plancius from the observations of Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman and it first appeared on a 35-cm (14 in) diameter celestial globe published in late 1597 in Amsterdam by Plancius and Jodocus Hondius. The first depiction of this constellation in a celestial atlas was in Johann Bayer's Uranometria of 1603. The French explorer and astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille charted the brighter stars and gave their Bayer designations in 1756. Its name means "male water snake", as opposed to Hydra, a much larger constellation that represents a female water snake. It remains below the horizon for most Northern Hemisphere observers.

Overview

All data

32 statements · 16% with external sources · numbers in brackets are citations

Short name: Hyi
Discovered: 1597
Discovered by: Petrus Plancius
Named after: snake
Area: 243 square degree
Shares border with: Dorado
Eridanus
Horologium
Mensa
Octans
Phoenix
Reticulum
Tucana
Part of: Southern Celestial Hemisphere
Official name: Hydrus
1
Sources
1.iau.org/public/themes/constellations/#n4
View statement on Wikidata ↗

On other databases

16 identifiers linking Hydrus across the web's reference databases

Data quality

statements

16%

externally sourced

Source last edited August 31, 2026. AIDB refreshes this page daily.

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AIDB. (2026). Hydrus (Q10416). Retrieved from https://aidb.si/e/hydrus-Q10416