These include Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Zeta2 and (probably) Eta Muscae, as well as HD 100546, a blue-white Herbig Ae/Be star that is surrounded by a complex debris disk containing a large planet or brown dwarf and possible protoplanet.

Musca was one of the 12 constellations established by the astronomer Petrus Plancius from the observations of the southern sky by the Dutch explorers Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman, who had sailed on the first Dutch trading expedition, known as the Eerste Schipvaart, to the East Indies.

A 1603 celestial globe by Willem Blaeu depicts it as providing nourishment for the nearby constellation Chamaeleon—its tongue trying to catch the insect.

[4] The French explorer and astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille called it la Mouche on the 1756 version of his planisphere of the southern skies.

Jean Fortin retained the French name in 1776 for his Atlas Céleste, while Lacaille latinised the name for his revised Coelum Australe Stelliferum in 1763.

[9] The Wardaman people of the Northern Territory in Australia perceived the main stars of Musca as a ceremonial boomerang, part of the Central Arena—a sacred area surrounding the constellation Crux that depicts the lightning creation beings and where they teach Wardaman customs; Alpha and Beta also signified a ceremonial headband, while Gamma and Delta represented two armbands.

[11] Musca is bordered by Crux to the north, Carina to the west, Chamaeleon to the south, Apus and Circinus to the east, and Centaurus to the northeast.

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

The star is a Beta Cephei variable with about 4.7 times the Sun's diameter, and pulsates every 2.2 hours, varying by 1% in brightness.

[17] Marking the fly's tail is Gamma Muscae,[16] a blue-white star of spectral type B5V that varies between magnitudes 3.84 and 3.86 over a period of 2.7 days.

[23] Alpha, Beta, Gamma, HD 103079, Zeta2 and (likely) Eta are all members of the Lower Centaurus Crux subgroup of the Scorpius–Centaurus association, a group of predominantly hot blue-white stars that share a common origin and proper motion across the galaxy.

[26] Epsilon Muscae is a red giant of spectral type M5III and semiregular variable that ranges between magnitudes 3.99 and 4.31 over approximately 40 days.

Although of a similar distance—around 302 light-years—to the stars of the Lower Centaurus Crux subgroup, it is moving much faster at around 100 km/s and does not share a common origin.

[28] To the northwest lies Mu Muscae, an orange giant of spectral type K4III that varies between apparent magnitude 4.71 and 4.76, and has been classified as a slow, irregular variable.

[32] S Muscae is likewise a classical Cepheid, a yellow-white supergiant ranging between spectral types F6Ib and G0Ib and magnitudes 5.89 to 6.49 over a period of 9.66 days.

The stars are so close that they are in contact with each other (overcontact binary) and are classed as a Beta Lyrae variable as their light varies from Earth as they eclipse each other.

[51] With around 1.54 times the mass of the Sun, it is cooling and expanding along the red-giant branch, having left the main sequence after exhausting its core supply of hydrogen fuel.

It has a substellar companion calculated to have a mass 9.2 times that of Jupiter and an orbital period of 124.6 days at a distance around 0.57 AU.

[58] Located on the border with Circinus is the unusual planetary nebula NGC 5189,[8] estimated to be around 1750 light-years away from Earth.

[59] Its complex structure is due to multiple ejections of material from the ageing central star, which are distorted by the presence of a likely binary companion.

[60] Located 2.4° east of Eta Muscae is the magnitude-12.9 Engraved Hourglass Nebula (MyCn 18),[61] which lies about 8000 light-years distant from Earth.

The globular cluster NGC 4372 near Gamma Muscae is fainter and likewise partially obscured by dust, but spans more arc minutes.