by neufer » Sat Dec 20, 2008 2:34 am
http://en.wikipedia.org/
<<The first preserved mention of the Large Magellanic Cloud was by Persian astronomer Abd Al-Rahman Al Sufi, who in 964, in his Book of Fixed Stars, calls it Al Bakr, the White Ox of the southern Arabs, and points out that while invisible from Northern Arabia and Baghdad, this object is visible from the strait of Bab el Mandeb, at 12°15' Northern latitude.
European sailors may have first noticed the clouds during the Middle Ages when they were used for navigation. Portuguese and Dutch sailors called them the Cape Clouds, a name that was retained for several centuries.
The next recorded observation was in 1503-4 by Amerigo Vespucci in a letter about his third voyage. In this letter he mentions "three Canopes, two bright and one obscure”; the “bright” refers to the two Magellanic Clouds, and the "obscure" refers to the Coalsack.
During the circumnavigation of the Earth by Ferdinand Magellan in 1519–22, they were described by Antonio Pigafetta as dim clusters of stars.
In Johann Bayer's celestial atlas Uranometria, published in 1603, he named the smaller cloud, Nubecula Minor. In Latin, Nubecula means a little cloud.>>
http://en.wikipedia.org/
<<The first preserved mention of the Large Magellanic Cloud was by Persian astronomer Abd Al-Rahman Al Sufi, who in 964, in his Book of Fixed Stars, calls it Al Bakr, the White Ox of the southern Arabs, and points out that while invisible from Northern Arabia and Baghdad, this object is visible from the strait of Bab el Mandeb, at 12°15' Northern latitude.
European sailors may have first noticed the clouds during the Middle Ages when they were used for navigation. Portuguese and Dutch sailors called them the Cape Clouds, a name that was retained for several centuries.
The next recorded observation was in 1503-4 by Amerigo Vespucci in a letter about his third voyage. In this letter he mentions "three Canopes, two bright and one obscure”; the “bright” refers to the two Magellanic Clouds, and the "obscure" refers to the Coalsack.
During the circumnavigation of the Earth by Ferdinand Magellan in 1519–22, they were described by Antonio Pigafetta as dim clusters of stars.
In Johann Bayer's celestial atlas Uranometria, published in 1603, he named the smaller cloud, Nubecula Minor. In Latin, Nubecula means a little cloud.>>