About

Dorado (US: , also UK: ) is a constellation in the Southern Sky. It was named in the late 16th century and is now one of the 88 modern constellations. Its name refers to the mahi-mahi (Coryphaena hippurus), which is known as dorado ("golden") in Spanish, although it has also been depicted as a swordfish. Dorado contains most of the Large Magellanic Cloud, the remainder being in the constellation Mensa. The South Ecliptic pole also lies within this constellation. Even though the name Dorado is not Latin but Spanish, astronomers give it the Latin genitive form Doradus when naming its stars; it is treated (like the adjacent asterism Argo Navis) as a feminine proper name of Greek origin ending in -ō (like Io or Callisto or Argo), which have a genitive ending -ūs.

History and mythology

Dorado was one of twelve constellations named by Petrus Plancius from the observations of Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman. It appeared: On a 35-centimetre-diameter (14 in) celestial globe published in 1597 (or 1598) in Amsterdam by Plancius with Jodocus Hondius. First depiction in a celestial atlas, in Johann Bayer's Uranometria of 1603. In Johannes Kepler's edition of Tycho Brahe's star list in the Rudolphine Tables of 1627; this was the first time that it was given the alternative name Xiphias, the swordfish. The name Dorado ultimately became dominant and was adopted by the IAU. Dorado represents a dolphinfish; it has also been called the goldfish because Dorado are gold-colored.