It is one of twelve constellations conceived in the late sixteenth century by Petrus Plancius from the observations of Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman.

Tucana first appeared on a 35-centimetre-diameter (14 in) celestial globe published in 1598 in Amsterdam by Plancius and Jodocus Hondius and was depicted in Johann Bayer's star atlas Uranometria of 1603.

French explorer and astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille gave its stars Bayer designations in 1756.

Tucana is one of the twelve 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.

[6] It was interpreted on Chinese charts as Niǎohuì "bird's beak", and in England as "Brasilian Pye", while Johannes Kepler and Giovanni Battista Riccioli termed it Anser Americanus "American Goose", and Caesius as Pica Indica.

[8] Irregular in shape, Tucana is bordered by Hydrus to the east, Grus and Phoenix to the north, Indus to the west and Octans to the south.

[1] The official constellation boundaries, as set by Belgian astronomer Eugène Delporte in 1930, are defined by a polygon of 10 segments.

Mu Tucanae was dropped by Francis Baily, who felt the star was too faint to warrant a designation, and Kappa's two components came to be known as Kappa1 and Kappa2.

[15] Alpha Tucanae is a spectroscopic binary, which means that the two stars have not been individually resolved using a telescope, but the presence of the companion has been inferred from measuring changes in the spectrum of the primary.

[15] Two degrees southeast of Alpha is the red-hued Nu Tucanae,[9] of spectral type M4III and lying around 290 light-years distant.

[18] Described by Richard Hinckley Allen as bluish,[7] Gamma Tucanae is a yellow-white sequence star of spectral type F4V and an apparent magnitude of 4.00 located around 75 light-years from Earth.

Located near the tail of the toucan,[9] Beta Tucanae's two brightest components, Beta1 and Beta2 are separated by an angle of 27 arcseconds and have apparent magnitudes of 4.4 and 4.5 respectively.

[21] Lying in the southwestern corner of the constellation around 251 light-years away from Earth, Delta Tucanae consists of a blue-white primary contrasting with a yellowish companion.

[24] The brighter component is a yellowish star,[21] known as Kappa Tucanae A with an apparent magnitude of 5.33 and spectral type F6V,[25] while the fainter lies 5 arcseconds to the northwest.

[32] Theta Tucanae is a white A-type star around 423 light-years distant from Earth,[33] which is actually a close binary system.

[36][37] Zeta Tucanae is a yellow-white main sequence star of spectral type F9.5V and an apparent magnitude of 4.20 located 28 light-years away from the Solar System.

HD 4308 is a star with around 83% of the Sun's mass located 72 light-years away with a super-Earth planet with an orbital period of around 15 days.

[47] The second-brightest globular cluster in the sky after Omega Centauri, 47 Tucanae (NGC 104) lies just west of the Small Magellanic Cloud.

[55] The barred spiral galaxy NGC 7408 is located 3 degrees northwest of Delta Tucanae, and was initially mistaken for a planetary nebula.

[56] The potential area to be covered needed to be at the poles of the telescope's orbit for continuous observing, with the final choice resting upon the discovery of a quasar, QSO J2233-606, in the field.