Generalities: it is a southern constellation, of quite big dimensions. It shows some stars of medium brightness. The Ship’s Stern contains also some interesting open clusters. It transits at midnight between December and January.

Origin e mythology: it is derived from the dismemberment of the big constellation of the Ship Argon,
which occupied a big slice of the southern sky. From the Ship Argon  the Sail, the Hull and the Stern were drawn. The Ship Argon was the one used by the Argonautis driven by Jason to go to subtract the precious
gold fleece of the sacred ram.

Stars: this constellation contains four stars under the magnitude 3 and other eight under the magnitude 4. The brightest star is Zeta Puppis, of magnitude 2.55, blue color, very far from us: 2,400 light-years.
 
Table of stars brighter than magnitude 3.5
 

Star	Proper name	Magnitude	Spectrum	Colour	Distance (light-years)	Notes
Zeta	Suhail Hadar	2.25	O5.8	blue	2400
Pi		2.70	K5	orange	130
Rho	Turais	2.81 (variable)	F6	white-yellow	300
Tau		2.93	K0	orange	82
Nu		3.17	B8	white	245
Sigma		3.25	K5	orange	166
Zeta	Asmidiske	3.34	G3	yellow	750
L2		3.4 (variable max)	A0p	white	75

Other objects: Puppis contains three open clusters catalogued by Messier: M46, the richest, M47 and M93. There is also a very rich open cluster, not catalogued by Messier: NGC 2477.
 

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