Dorado: A constellation in the Southern Sky named after a sea creature, also known as Xiphias or the swordfish.
History: Dorado was named by Petrus Plancius in the late 16th century based on the observations of Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman. It was first depicted in Johann Bayer's Uranometria of 1603 and later adopted by the IAU.
Stars: Dorado contains several notable stars, such as Alpha Doradus, the brightest star in the constellation; Beta Doradus, a Cepheid variable star; R Doradus, a red giant with the largest apparent size of any star other than the Sun; and Gamma Doradus, the prototype of the Gamma Doradus variable stars.
Deep sky objects: Dorado is rich in deep sky objects, as it contains most of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way that hosts many nebulae, star clusters, and supernovae. Some of the most prominent objects are the Tarantula Nebula, the largest and brightest nebula in the Local Group; N44, a superbubble with a smaller bubble inside; NGC 1566, a face-on spiral galaxy; and NGC 2080, the Ghost Head Nebula. Dorado also contains the South Ecliptic pole.
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