page_title: Pyxis
section_title: Deep sky objects
hierarchical_section_title: Pyxis / Features / Deep sky objects
caption_attribution_description: English: A Hubble Space Telescope photo of the planetary nebula NGC 2818, one of few planetary nebulae in the Milky Way residing inside a star cluster. Norsk nynorsk: Hubble-bilete av den planetariske tåka NGC 2818, éi av få i Mjølkevegen som ligg inne i ein stjernehop. Русский: Планетарная туманность NGC 2818
context_page_description: Pyxis is a small and faint constellation in the southern sky. Abbreviated from Pyxis Nautica, its name is Latin for a mariner's compass. Pyxis was introduced by Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille in the 18th century, and is counted among the 88 modern constellations.
  The plane of the Milky Way passes through Pyxis. A faint constellation, its three brightest stars—Alpha, Beta and Gamma Pyxidis—are in a rough line. At magnitude 3.68, Alpha is the constellation's brightest star. It is a blue-white star approximately 880 light-years distant and around 22,000 times as luminous as the Sun.
  Pyxis is located close to the stars that formed the old constellation Argo Navis, the ship of Jason and the Argonauts. Parts of Argo Navis were the Carina, the Puppis, and the Vela. These eventually became their own constellations. In the 19th century, John Herschel suggested renaming Pyxis to Malus but the suggestion was not followed.
  T Pyxidis, located about 4 degrees northeast of Alpha Pyxidis, is a recurrent nova that has flared up to magnitude 7 every few decades. Also, three star systems in Pyxis have confirmed exoplanets.
context_section_description: Pyxis lies in the plane of the Milky Way, although part of the eastern edge is dark, with material obscuring our galaxy arm there. NGC 2818 is a planetary nebula that lies within a dim open cluster of magnitude 8.2. NGC 2818A is an open cluster that lies on line of sight with it. K 1-2 is a planetary nebula whose central star is a spectroscopic binary composed of two stars in close orbit with jets emanating from the system. The surface temperature of one component has been estimated at as high as 85,000 K. NGC 2627 is an open cluster of magnitude 8.4 that is visible in binoculars.
  Discovered in 1995, the Pyxis globular cluster is a 13.3 ± 1.3 billion year-old globular cluster situated around 130,000 light-years distant from Earth and around 133,000 light-years distant from the centre of the Milky Way—a region not previously thought to contain globular clusters. Located in the galactic halo, it was noted to lie on the same plane as the Large Magellanic Cloud and the possibility has been raised that it might be an escaped object from that galaxy.
  NGC 2613 is a spiral galaxy of magnitude 10.5 which appears spindle-shaped as it is almost edge-on to observers on Earth. Henize 2-10 is a dwarf galaxy which lies 30 million light-years away. It has a black hole of around a million solar masses at its centre. Known as a starburst galaxy due to very high rates of star formation, it has a bluish colour due to the huge numbers of young stars within it.
caption: The planetary nebula NGC 2818, imaged by the Hubble telescope
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