A small constellation in the cirumpolar region of the south pole of the sky.  It is one of the 12 constellations created by Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman , who charted them on their voyage to the East Indies between 1595 and 1597. It neighbours GRus, Hydrus, Indus, Octans and Phoenix. Tucana crosses the meridian an  midnight onthe 17th of September each year.  TOn 28th December 1969 Comet Bennett was discovered in Tucana.  It truly was one of the great comets of the twentieth century and during March of 1970 it reached zero manitude.  The most magnificent object within the boundaries of Tucana is the Small Magellanic Cloud, the smaller and more distant of the Milky Ways companion galaxies. At some 200,00 light years distance, its mass is only some 2000 time that of the Sun. Strangley enough it was bright enough to be designated its own NGC number, something that both the LMC and M42 (the Pleiades) don't have.
The total integrated visual magnitude of the the SMC is 1.5.

About 1° away to the west of the SMC lies the second finest globular cluster in all the skies.  NGC 104, better known as 47 Tucanae, is the second largest and second brightest globular cluster in the skies, outshone only by another southern globular, Omega Centauri (NGC 5139) Discovered by Abbe Nicholas Louis de Lacaille on September 14, 1751. Next to observe and catalog it were James Dunlop in 1826, and John Herschel in 1834.

As its name "47 Tucanae" indicates, this object was first cataloged as a star and numbered the 47th in Tucana. Although a conspicuous naked-eye object, it is situated so much south at its declination of -72 deg, that it was not discovered as a deepsky object before 1751, when Abbe Lacaille cataloged it in his list of southern nebulous objects. Next to observe and catalog it were James Dunlop in 1826, and John Herschel in 1834.  It can be seen with the naked eye, and it is bright enough to earn a Flamsteed designation with a visual magnitude of 4.0. It is one of only a small number of features in the southern sky with such a designation.

The stars of 47 Tucanae are spread over a volume nearly 120 light years across. At their distance of 13,400 light years, they still cover an area of the sky of about the same apparent diameter as the full moon, about 30 minutes of arc. It has 22 known millisecond pulsars, and at least 21 blue stragglers near the core.  Globular cluster 47 Tucanae is approaching us at roughly 19 km/s.

At the northern edge of the Small Magellanic Cloud lies the globular cluster NGC 362. It is not part of the galaxy but a foreground object (about 40000 lightyears distant to us). It is of 6th mag and can be observed with binoculars. Discovered by James Dunlop on August 1, 1826 and cataloged by him as No. 62 of his catalog.

In the late 1980s, NGC 362 was compared to the otherwise similar globular NGC 288, and it was found that this cluster was about 3 billion years younger. This result was found because of differences in the color-magnitude diagrams: The so-called Horizontal Branch of NGC 362 is redder, and the turnoff point of the main sequence (hottest/bluest/most massive main sequence stars) is bluer (and brighter).
 

Double Stars in Tucana.

The double delta Tuc is a nice object for small telescopes. A 4th mag star and its 9th mag companion is revealed.
The components of kappa Tuc are of 5th and 7th mag. The blue-white pair can be viewed with small scopes (30 mm aperture an higher). There are at least two more components, but they a too faint to be observed with small scopes.
The double lambda Tuc consists of a K2 giant of 5.45 mag accompanied by a F7IV-V star of 6.22 mag.
Viewed with binoculars beta Tuc appears as a wide double of two main sesquence stars (a B9 of 4.37 mag and a A0 of 5.09 mag). With a small telescope a third star (4.54 mag) close to the brighter component is revealed. Yet this star is double itself, consisting of an A2 and an A7 main sequence star). In fact it is a sextuple, but the other components are too faint to be observed with small scopes.

Information supplied by
SEDS, Cambridge Guide to the Constellations, WikiPedia.