Within the constellation's borders lie NGC 2419, an unusually remote globular cluster; the galaxy NGC 2770, which has hosted three recent Type Ib supernovae; the distant quasar APM 08279+5255, whose light is magnified and split into multiple images by the gravitational lensing effect of a foreground galaxy; and the Lynx Supercluster, which was the most distant supercluster known at the time of its discovery in 1999.

Naming it Lynx because of its faintness, he challenged future stargazers to see it, declaring that only the lynx-eyed (those with good sight) would have been able to recognize it.

English astronomer John Flamsteed adopted the constellation in his catalog, published in 1712, and his subsequent atlas.

[1] According to 19th-century amateur astronomer Richard Hinckley Allen, the chief stars in Lynx "might well have been utilized by the modern constructor, whoever he was, of our Ursa Major to complete the quartette of feet.

"[2] Lynx is bordered by Camelopardalis to the north, Auriga to the west, Gemini to the southwest, Cancer to the south, Leo to the east and Ursa Major to the northeast.

[5] The official constellation boundaries, as set by Belgian astronomer Eugène Delporte in 1930,[a] are defined by a polygon of 20 segments (illustrated in infobox).

The stellar atmosphere has cooled, giving it a surface temperature of 3,880 K.[14] The only star with a proper name is Alsciaukat (from the Arabic for thorn), also known as 31 Lyncis, located 380 ± 10 light-years from Earth.

[23] HD 75898 is a 3.8 ± 0.8 billion-year-old yellow star of spectral type G0V that has just begun expanding and cooling off the main sequence.

[26] XO-4 is an F-type main sequence star that is a little hotter and more massive than the Sun that has a hot Jupiter orbiting with a period of around 4.1 days.

[28] WASP-13, a Sun-like star that has begun to swell and cool off the main sequence, had a transiting planet discovered by the SuperWASP program in 2009.

[29] Lynx's most notable deep sky object is NGC 2419, also called the "Intergalactic Wanderer" as it was assumed to lie outside the Milky Way.

[32] Originally thought to be a star, NGC 2419 was discovered to be a globular cluster by American astronomer Carl Lampland.

[38] The last of these is famous for being the first supernova detected by the X-rays released very early on in its formation, rather than by the optical light emitted during later stages, which allowed the first moments of the outburst to be observed.

It is possible that NGC 2770's interactions with a suspected companion galaxy may have created the massive stars causing this activity.

[42] APM 08279+5255 is a very distant, broad absorption line quasar discovered in 1998 and initially considered the most luminous object yet found.

It is magnified and split into multiple images by the gravitational lensing effect of a foreground galaxy through which its light passes.

[43] It appears to be a giant elliptical galaxy with a supermassive black hole around 23 billion times as massive as the Sun and an associated accretion disk that has a diameter of 3600 light years.

[44][e] While observing the quasar in 2008, astronomers using ESA's XMM Newton and the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) in Arizona discovered the huge galaxy cluster 2XMM J083026+524133.

Only visible through gravitational lensing produced by a closer cluster of galaxies, the Arc is a feature of the early days of the universe, when "furious firestorms of star birth" were more common.