Reticulum

Reticulum is a small, faint constellation in the southern sky. Its name is Latin for a small net, or reticle—a net of crosshairs at the focus of a telescope eyepiece that is used to measure star positions. The constellation is best viewed between October and December, but cannot be seen from middle to northern latitudes.

History

A constellation in this area was introduced by Isaac Habrecht II in his celestial globe in 1621, who named it Rhombus. It was replaced with a somewhat different constellation by the French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille in the eighteenth century; during his stay at the Cape of Good Hope, he named the constellation le Réticule Rhomboide to commemorate the reticle in his telescope eyepiece. The name was later Latinized to Reticulum in his star catalogue Coelum Australe Stelliferum. In 1810, the stars of Reticulum were used by William Croswell to produce the constellation Marmor Sculptile, which represented the bust of Christopher Columbus, but this did not catch on among astronomers.

Reticulum (disambiguation)

The constellation Reticulum is small and faint in Earth's southern sky.

Reticulum may also refer to:

See also

Reticulum (anatomy)

The reticulum is the first chamber in the alimentary canal of a ruminant animal. Anatomically it is considered the smaller portion of the reticulorumen along with the rumen. Together these two compartments make up 84% of the volume of the total stomach. The rumen is located at the base of the esophagus.

The reticulum is colloquially referred to as the honeycomb. It is also known as the bonnet and as the kings-hood. When cleaned and used for food, it is called "tripe".

Heavy or dense feed and foreign objects will settle here. It is the site of hardware disease in cattle and because of the proximity to the heart this disease can be life-threatening.

Anatomy

The internal mucosa has a honeycomb shape. When looking at the reticulum with ultrasonography it is a crescent shaped structure with a smooth contour. The reticulum is adjacent to the diaphragm, lungs, abomasum, rumen and liver. The heights of the reticular crests and depth of the structures vary across ruminant animal species. Grazing ruminants have higher crests than browsers. However, general reticulum size is fairly constant across ruminants of differing body size and feeding type.