History
The Magellanic Clouds have been known since the earliest times to the ancient Middle Eastern peoples. The first preserved mention of the Large Magellanic Cloud is by the Persian astronomer Al Sufi. In 964, in his Book of Fixed Stars, he called it al-Bakr ("the Sheep") "of the southern Arabs"; he noted that the Cloud is not visible from northern Arabia and Baghdad, but can be seen at the strait of Bab el Mandeb (12°15' N), which is the southernmost point of Arabia.
By Europeans, the Clouds were first observed by Italian explorers Peter Martyr d'Anghiera and Andrea Corsali at the end of the 15th century. Subsequently, they were reported by Antonio Pigafetta, who accompanied the expedition of Ferdinand Magellan on its circumnavigation of the world in 1519-1522. However, naming the clouds after Magellan did not become widespread until much later. In Bayer's Uranometria they are designated as nubecula major and nubecula minor. In the 1756 star map of the French astronomer Lacaille, they are designated as le Grand Nuage and le Petit Nuage ("the Large Cloud" and "the Small Cloud").
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