Universe Puzzle No. 6

As with last week’s Universe Puzzle, something that cannot be answered by five minutes spent googling, a puzzle that requires you to cudgel your brains a bit, and do some lateral thinking. This is a puzzle on a “Universal” topic – astronomy and astronomers; space, satellites, missions, and astronauts; planets, moons, telescopes, and so on.

Name three well-known astronomers – or physicists whose work contributed to astronomy – and whose names are constellations. For a gold star, say why your three are more prize-worthy than anyone else’s!

UPDATE: Answer has been posted below.

There are no prizes for the first correct answer – there may not even be just one correct answer – posted as a comment (the judge’s decision – mine! – will be final), but I do hope that you’ll have lots of fun.

Hon. Salacious B. Crumb, Charles A. Musca, David Virgo, and V.R. Phoenix are indeed possible answers, but they are not particularly well-known. You definitely get an extra point for going to “defunct constellations”, but it is creativity too far.

Navneeth, Leó Szilárd (Leo) is an excellent answer!

renoor, Francis Drake (Draco) is a wonderful, left-field answer!

Gadi Eidelheit, Henrietta SWAN Levitt (Cygnus) is good, not least because I had that on my list. And LEOnard Euler is also excellent! However, you get only half marks for Maximillian WOLF (Vulpecula) – Vulpecula is ‘Fox’; Lupus is ‘Wolf’; and no marks for Charles Augustione de COLUMBO (you mean Charles Augustin de Coulomb; the constellation Columba, the Dove, is not related to Coulomb).

In addition to Henrietta Swan Levitt (Cygnus), I had the following:
* William Swan (he left his name in astronomical spectroscopy, google Swan bands)
* Bill Keel (Carina; Bill is extremely active in his support of amateurs, Galaxy Zoo, etc, etc – ‘ngc3314’ is his handle – and also has done excellent work on dust in spiral galaxies)
* Arthur Wolfe (Lupus; his name is in the cosmologically important Sachs-Wolfe effect)
* Tim Hunter (Orion; co-founded the International Dark Sky Association, in 1987)
* Charles Wolf (Lupus again; together with Georges Rayet he discovered the Wolf-Rayet stars)

Check back next week for another Universe Puzzle!