Mensa is The Table Mountain, a reference to the Table Mountain at the Cape of Good Hope, from which Lacaille mapped the southern hemisphere. As with many of these newer constellations, there isn't a great deal here for binoculars.
Alpha Mensae is a yellow star 33.1 light years away, very similar to our own Sun with a magnitude of 5.1. The constellation has only 5th- and 6th-mag stars; it's found due south of the Large Magellanic Cloud. (In fact beta Mensae is just inside the southern edge of the LMC.
Alpha Mensae is found at the opposite edge of the same binocular field.
