Crux few bright stars of importance lie between Crux and the pole itself, although the constellation Musca is fairly easily recognised immediately beneath Crux. A technique used in the field is to clench one's right fist and to view the cross, aligning the first knuckle with the axis of the cross. The tip of the thumb will indicate south. Argentine gauchos are well known for using it for night orientation in the vast Pampas and Patagonic regions. Within the constellation's borders, there are 49 stars brighter than or equal to apparent magnitude 6.5. The four main stars that form the asterism
Crux in Chinese astronomy Crux in Chinese astronomy The modern constellation Crux is not included in the Three Enclosures and Twenty-Eight Mansions system of traditional Chinese uranography because its stars are too far south for observers in China to know about them prior to the introduction of Western star charts. Based on the work of Xu Guangqi and the German Jesuit missionary Johann Adam Schall von Bell in the late Ming Dynasty, this constellation has been classified as one of the 23 Southern Asterisms (近南極星區, "Jìnnánjíxīngōu") under the name Cross (十字架, "Shízìjià"). Possibly Acrux (Alpha Crucis), Mimosa (Beta Crucis) and Gacrux (Gamma Crucis) are