Ara (Latin for "the Altar") is a southern constellation between Scorpius, Telescopium, Triangulum Australe, and Norma.

In ancient Greek mythology, Ara was identified as the altar where the gods first made offerings and formed an alliance before defeating the Titans.

[1] One of the southernmost constellations depicted by Ptolemy,[3] it had been recorded by Aratus in 270 BC as lying close to the horizon, and the Almagest portrays stars as far south as Gamma Arae.

Professor Bradley Schaefer proposes such Ancients must have been able to see as far south as Zeta Arae, for a pattern that looked like an altar.

In the early days of printing, a 1482 woodcut of Gaius Julius Hyginus's classic Poeticon Astronomicon depicts the altar as surrounded by demons.

The Castle of Knowledge by Robert Record of 1556 lists the constellation stating that "Under the Scorpions tayle, standeth the Altar.

";[7] a decade later a translation of a fairly recent mainly astrological work by Marcellus Palingenius of 1565, by Barnabe Googe states "Here mayst thou both the Altar, and the myghty Cup beholde.

"[8] In Chinese astronomy, the stars of the constellation Ara lie within The Azure Dragon of the East (東方青龍, Dōng Fāng Qīng Lóng).

The Wardaman people of the Northern Territory in Australia saw the stars of Ara and the neighbouring constellation Pavo as flying foxes.

[12] The official constellation boundaries, as set by Belgian astronomer Eugène Delporte in 1930,[c] are defined by a polygon of twelve segments.

[16] Beta is an orange-hued star of spectral type K3Ib-IIa that has been classified as a supergiant or bright giant,[17] and lies around 650 light-years from Earth.

[23] It is 5,800 times as luminous as the Sun,[22] its energy emitted from its outer envelope at an effective temperature of 18,044 K.[23] A Be star, Alpha Arae is surrounded by a dense equatorial disk of material in Keplerian (rather than uniform) rotation.

[25] Delta Arae is a blue-white main sequence star of spectral type B8Vn and magnitude 3.6, 198 ± 4 light-years from Earth.

[28] Eta Arae is an orange giant of apparent magnitude 3.76, located 299 ± 5 light-years distant from Earth.