Mythology of the constellation Telescopium

Between 1751 and 1752, whilst staying in Cape Town, Abbe Nicolas Lacaille mapped and named fourteen constellations in the Southern hemisphere. Three of these were in honour of the Arts - CAELUM, The Chisel, a sculptor's tool; PICTOR, The Painter's Easel; and SCULPTOR, The Sculptor (originally called L'atelier du sculpteur, i.e. sculptor's workshop). But the majority of these modern constellations celebrated new scientific inventions, these being: ANTLIA, The Air Pump, which had been developed by the physicist Denis Papin (1647-1712); CIRCINUS, The Compasses, named for the compasses so vital to surveyors; FORNAX, The Furnace, a chemical instrument; HOROLOGIUM, The Clock, honouring the invention of Dutchman Christiaan Huygens; MICROSCOPIUM, The Microscope, which was to bring enormous advantages to all branches of science; NORMA, The Level, a set square used both by sailors as they travelled on their voyages of discovery and by the carpenters who built their vessels; OCTANS, The Octant, a prototype of the sextant, which had only recently (1730) been invented by John Hadley; PYXIS, The Compass, another instrument so essential to seafarers; RETICULUM, The Net, most probably a kind of grid used on the eyepiece of a telescope to aid judgement of scale and location; and, finally, TELESCOPIUM, The Telescope, so essential to his own studies. The fourteenth constellation he named MENSA, The Table Mountain, honouring the site where he had carried out his work.