Calle del Pez Austral
Named for Piscis Austrinus, the Southern Fish, the small constellation of the southern sky whose brightest star is Fomalhaut.
The name looks to the southern sky. The Southern Fish is Piscis Austrinus, a minor constellation of the southern hemisphere, visible from Madrid very low on the horizon on autumn nights. It gathers barely fifty stars, but one is enough to mark it: Fomalhaut, white and solitary, among the brightest in the firmament. Its name comes from the Arabic fum al-ḥūt, “mouth of the fish,” and the ancients imagined it drinking the water poured by Aquarius.
The street belongs to the Estrella neighborhood, where the developer Urbis brought the whole sky down to this corner of Retiro: here run Calle de la Estrella Polar, Calle de la Cruz del Sur, Calle de Sirio, Calle de la Lira, Calle Perseo, Calle de Piscis and the nearby Calle del Pez Volador. Calle del Pez Austral brings to the streets of Retiro a constellation almost never seen over Madrid.