Columba is a faint constellation designated in the late sixteenth century, remaining in official use, with its rigid limits set in the 20th century.

It takes up 1.31% of the southern celestial hemisphere and is just south of Canis Major and Lepus.

This, a blue-white star, has a pre-Bayer, traditional, Arabic name Phact (meaning ring dove) and is 268 light-years from Earth.

[9] The constellation contains the runaway star μ Columbae.

Columba contains the solar antapex – the opposite to the net direction of the solar system[10] The globular cluster NGC 1851 appears in Columba at 7th magnitude in a far part of our galaxy at 39,000 light-years away - it is resolvable south of at greatest latitude +40°N in medium-sized amateur telescopes (under good conditions).