2020 Venture Vermont: Identify a constellation that is new to you.

so this winter i was looking through my rss feed and i saw a somebody post something about a petition to bring back the constellation Bufo.

what?

it turns out that obsolete constellations are a thing.

and nobody knows if the english naturalist John Hill was serious or not when he created fifteen constellations with names like toad, slug, and leech.

because he had a rather longtime feud with the royal society, it's entirely possible that he only created them hoping they would embrace them and he could have a laugh. 

they didn't.

and yet there once was a constellation called Bufo, and because i like both toads and obscure things, i decided to go out and find it.

so i picked a good clear night when the comet Neowise was visible and i had a look at that, and then i turned my attention to an obscure patch of sky between the still recognized constellations Libra and Hydra.

the star Brachium, also known as Sigma Librae is meant to be the eye of the toad, and it presses stars from both of its neighboring constellations into use.

but still.

TOAD.

here's my drawing.