Apus

Like Antlia, Apus is a faint and small constellation, ranking 67th of 88 constellations by area. "Apus" refers to a bird of paradise, and was wrongly reputed for not having any feet once upon a time. Interestingly, all 5 of its brightest stars are reddish in hue. Alpha Apodis is the brightest star within the constellation.

The author believes that Apus is relatively difficult to locate as it is surrounded by similarly small constellations and does not form any distinctive shapes. However, it would be helpful to locate either or both Octans and Triangulum Australe as Apus is sandwiched between the two.

This is a rough drawing of Apus, with its neighbouring constellations.

While there are no Messier objects in Apus, there are the globular cluster NGC6101 and many faint galaxies. Globular clusters are circular conglomeration of thousands to millions of stars. They are not galaxies, but rather orbit galaxies such as our Milky Way, and hence typically found in the galactic halo. As they are bound together by gravity, there is a higher concentration of stars towards the center. Unlike open clusters, nearly all globular clusters contain stars formed at different times.

Up next is Aquarius.