Mensa - The Table

Mensa is a southern constellation bordered by Dorado, Volans, and Hydrus. This is a rather sparse region of the sky. The southern third of the Large Magellanic Cloud spills over into Mensa on the northern boundary.

History and Mythology

This constellation was created by the French astronomer Nicholas Louis de Lacaille in 1752. It was named for Table Mountain near Cape Town, South Africa, from which Lacaille made most of his observations. There is no classic mythology attached to Mensa.

Notable Objects

Mensa consists of about 20 fifth magnitude stars. Alpha Mensae is a yellow star of magnitude 5.1, and is 28 light-years away. Beta Mensae is magnitude 5.3.

There are no prominent nebulae or distant galaxies in Mensa. The southern portion of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), one of the nearest galaxies to the Milky Way, lies in Mensa. The northern half of the Cloud is in Dorado. There are a few faint open clusters in Mensa, but these are actually members of the Large Magellanic Cloud. Since the LMC extends over 6 degrees, use binoculars to view this area of the sky.