Dorado is a constellation in the southern sky. It was named in the late 16th century and is now one of the 88 modern constellations. Its name refers to the dolphinfish, which is known as dorado in Portuguese, although it has also been depicted as a swordfish. Dorado contains most of the Large Magellanic Cloud, the remainder being in the constellation Mensa. The South Ecliptic pole also lies within this constellation. Even though the name Dorado is not Latin but Portuguese, astronomers give it the Latin genitive form Doradus when naming its stars; it is treated as a feminine proper name of Greek origin ending in -ō, which have a genitive ending -ūs.
On Plancius's maps of 1592 and 1594, figured as an elderly bearded man named Polophylax.
On a celestial globe published in 1597 in Amsterdam by Plancius with Jodocus Hondius.
First depiction in a celestial atlas, in Johann Bayer's Uranometria of 1603, where it was named Dorado.
In Johannes Kepler's edition of Tycho Brahe's star list in the Rudolphine Tables of 1627: first time that it was named Xiphias, the swordfish.
Dorado has been represented historically as a dolphinfish and a swordfish; the latter depiction is inaccurate. It has also been represented as a goldfish. The constellation was also known in the 17th and 18th century as Xiphias. The name Dorado ultimately become dominant and was adopted by the IAU.
Because Dorado contains part of the Large Magellanic Cloud, it is rich in deep sky objects. The Large Magellanic Cloud, 25,000 light-years in diameter, is a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way Galaxy, located at a distance of 179,000 light-years. It has been deformed by its gravitational interactions with the larger Milky Way. In 1987, it became host to SN 1987A, the first supernova of 1987 and the closest since 1604. This 25,000-light-year-wide galaxy contains over 10,000 million stars. All coordinates given are for Epoch J2000.0. is an intermediate spiral galaxy.
NGC 2080, also called the "Ghost Head Nebula", is an emission nebula that is 50 light-years wide in the Large Magellanic Cloud. It is named for the two distinct white patches that it possesses, which are regions of recent star formation. The western portion is colored green from doubly ionized oxygen, the southern portion is red from hydrogen alpha emissions, and the center region is colored yellow from both oxygen and hydrogen emissions. The western white patch, A1, has one massive, recently formed star inside. The eastern patch, A2, has several stars hidden in its dust.
Tarantula Nebula is in the Large Magellanic Cloud, named for its spiderlike shape. It is also designated 30 Doradus, as it is visible to the naked eye as a slightly out-of-focus star. Larger than any nebula in the Milky Way at 1000 light-years in diameter, it is also brighter, because it is illuminated by the open star clusterNGC 2070, which has at its center the star clusterR136. The illuminating stars are supergiants.
N44 is a superbubble in the Large Magellanic Cloud that is 1,000 light-years wide. Its overall structure is shaped by the 40 hot stars towards its center. Within the superbubble of N44 is a smaller bubble catalogued as N44F. It is approximately 35 light-years in diameter and is shaped by an incredibly hot star at its center, which has a stellar wind speed of 7 million kilometers per hour. N44F also features dust columns with probable star formation hidden inside.
