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This webpage reproduces a section of Star Names Their Lore and Meaning by Richard Hinckley Allen as reprinted in the Dover edition, 1963 The text is in the public domain. This page has been carefully proofread and I believe it to be free of errors. If you find a mistake though, please let me know!

 p295  Nubecula Minor, the Lesser Cloud,

Nubes Minor with Royer, is the Nube Minore of the Italians, the Petit Nuage of the French, and the Kleine Wolke of the Germans. It lies within the borders of Hydrus and Tucana, with which Julius Schiller fashioned it into the archangel Raphael.

According to Flammarion, it contains 37 nebulae, 7 clusters, and 200 stars, and covers about ten square degrees, the immediately surrounding space being almost devoid of stars, or, as Sir John Herschel wrote, "most oppressively desolate," and access to it on all sides "is through a desert."

Close to it, between η Hydri and κ Tucanae, is the centre of the constellational vacancy of 2400 to 2000 B.C., marking the place of the south pole of that date.

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