Dorado is located above Mensa, between Reticulum and Volans in the southern sky. It is composed of a line of stars extending southward toward Mensa. It is a summer constellation for observers in Southern Hemisphere.
History and Mythology
Dorado was created by Johann Bayer in 1603, and represents a swordfish. There is no mythology connected with Dorado, since it is a modern constellation.
Notable Objects
Alpha Doradus is a magnitude 3.28 star, about 175 light-years away. Beta Doradus is a variable star with a range of magnitude from 4.5 to 5.5.
The LMC (Large Magellanic Cloud) is located at the southern border of Doradus. Named by Ferdinand Magellan in 1519, it is an irregular galaxy rich in star clusters and nebulae. The LMC is about 160,000 light years away, has a diameter of 14,000 light-years, and a mass of about 25 billion suns, which is 10% of the mass of the Milky Way. One thought to be a satellite galaxy the Milky Way, the LMC is now known to be moving too fast to be gravitationally bound to our galaxy - but it is still one of the nearest galaxies to our own.
Supernova 1987A, the brightest supernova seen since the invention of the telescope, and the only one visible to the naked eye since that time, took place in the Large Magellanic Cloud.
The Tarantula Nebula, NGC 2070, is located inside the LMC. It is the largest and brightest complex of glowing hydrogen and supergiant young stars known. It has some visual resemblance to a Tarantula. It is fifty times larger than the Orion nebula, and is visible with the naked eye along the southeast end of Large Magellanic Cloud.