Starwatch: Scutum, a faint shield worth straining the eyes for

This week’s faint-but-worth-it constellation is Scutum, the shield. The chart shows the view looking south from London at 22:00BST on Sunday, but the view will be essentially the same all week.

The constellation was the invention of the Polish astronomer Johannes Hevelius in 1684. He originally called it Scutum Sobiescianum, the shield of Sobieski. This was to honour the victory of Poland’s King Jan III Sobieski’s in the Battle of Vienna.

There was a bit of a fad among astronomers to name constellations after their monarchs in the 17th century. Five years before Scutum, Edmond Halley invented the constellation Robur Carolinum, Charles’ oak, to commemorate the tree in which King Charles II hid after his defeat at the Battle of Worcester. It never caught on because it pinched stars from the old constellation Argo Navis, named after Jason and the Argonaut’s ship. Hevelius’ constellation fared better, simply having the king’s name stripped off.

From a dark site, you will see that Scutum is embedded in the star clouds of the Milky Way. Although faint from our perspective, these clouds are the densest collections of stars anywhere in the galaxy. Scutum is easily visible from the southern hemisphere when looking to the north-eastern sky.