Pavo

By BrightK self-checked Published 2026-09-04 Updated 2026-10-18 Editorial policy

• Constellations
• In the sky now

What is Pavo?

Constellations· Southern winter evenings · not visible from mid-northern latitudes · near the south pole. Pavo is a peacock spreading its tail deep in the southern sky. It never rises from Europe or most of North America, and its bright alpha star, Peacock, is one of the stars ships and aircraft use to find their position.

Stars of the figure

The 1 brightest of the 3 stars used in the figure (3 lines). Lower magnitude means brighter.

Constellation basics

Figures are representative approximations. Source: compiled from NASA and IAU public data.

Pavo's NGC 6744, a look-alike of our galaxy seen from outside

We live inside the Milky Way, so we cannot photograph it whole from outside. Astronomers instead study other galaxies with a similar structure to picture what ours looks like. The spiral galaxy NGC 6744 in Pavo is often used this way. It has a bar-shaped structure at its centre, several winding arms, and a small companion galaxy at its side, all features it shares with the Milky Way.

NGC 6744 is about 30 million light-years away and around 170,000 light-years across, a little larger than our galaxy. The same constellation holds NGC 6752, a globular cluster, which is a ball of densely packed stars. It is the third-brightest globular cluster in the sky, and at about 13,000 light-years it is close enough for a telescope to split it into individual stars. Pavo cannot be seen from Europe or most of North America, but it gathers objects that help us understand our own galaxy.

The constellation in depth

Pavo is one of twelve new southern constellations that Petrus Plancius created in 1598. They were based on star positions measured by the Dutch navigators Pieter Keyser and Frederick de Houtman on the way to the East Indies. At that time Europeans were putting the strange animals they met on distant voyages into the sky, and the peacock was one of them. In Greek myth the peacock was the bird of the goddess Hera, so it also fitted old stories.

The brightest star is called Peacock, an English name used instead of a Greek letter. It was given in the late 1930s, when British navigators' almanacs for aircraft needed a name for every navigation star. At magnitude 1.9, Peacock is a useful guide in a part of the sky with few bright stars. It is a blue-white star about 180 light-years away, with a companion that circles it about every 11 days.

Delta Pavonis is a star much like the Sun, about 20 light-years away. It is nine times closer than Peacock yet looks fainter, at magnitude 3.6, because like the Sun it is not very luminous. Because it is a Sun-like neighbour, it often appears on lists of targets in the search for planets and life. Kappa Pavonis, meanwhile, is a Cepheid, a star whose brightness rises and falls on a regular schedule.

Pavo lies close to the south celestial pole, so it never rises from Europe or most of the United States. From Australia, New Zealand or South Africa it stands high in the south on evenings from June to September. Change the Sky view location to Sydney and look south: Peacock and its constellation appear below and to the south of Sagittarius.

Frequently asked

When can I see Pavo?

Pavo is best seen in southern winter evenings · not visible from London or New York.

How do I find Pavo?

To find Pavo, look for far south of Sagittarius, toward the pole.

What is the brightest star in Pavo?

The brightest star in Pavo is Peacock, at magnitude 1.9.

Related

Figures are representative approximations. Simulated positions use J2000 mean elements.