The Stars in their Constellations

The stars of the sky are pretty. Looking at the sky from a dark site while the moon is below the horizon and the sky is clear is enough to amaze the most jaded observer. The Milky Way stretches from horizon to horizon and there are more stars in the sky than a person could ever count. But after a little while, looking at the pretty stars is like looking at pretty flowers. It can be superficial to just stare and say "wow" or "pretty".

The richness of the sky is like the abundance of a large library. When I look at either, I know there is lot there, but start looking more closely requires a system. There is nothing wrong with looking at the sky and saying - "Hey! that little group of stars looks like a baseball diamond. That group looks like a tree." There is nothing wrong with telling your pretty wife that there is star named after her - that bright one right there. But most of us also know that there is a standard set of groups of stars in the skies.

Almost all groups of people have had names for parts of the sky. In historical time, all the great civilizations have had different names for groups of stars. The constellation names we use are actually a lot more recent than is commonly known. The names of many of the stars we use come from arabic sources. The names of many of the constellations come from Greek mythology. Many of the constellations of the far south were named by european astronomers in the 19th century. But it was not until the time of my father's boyhood - the 1930s - that the sky was carved up into boundaries named after the constelations.

It turns out that the boundaries are very useful. Suddenly, with the institution of those boundaries, I can decide to take a closer look at one part of the sky. For me, it's a little like going from an overall appreciation of a field of dasies to the beauty of one individual plant.

Let me give an example. Knowing that there is a constellation called Lyra in the summer sky, I can decide to take a closer look at that little group of stars. I may want to take out a pad of paper and draw the stars in the constellation - just like with dasies, I may want to draw one of the plants or one of the blooms. I might be interested that the bright star in the constellation has a name - Vega - and that it is one of the brightest stars in the summer sky. I can see just a few other stars, but out one end of the constellation is a pair of stars that are about the same brightness - and they have names too - beta and gamma Lyrae.

Just as I might be interested in looking more closely at a daisy with a magnifying glass, adding a little magnification and light gathering power to look at Lyra is fun too. With binoculars, the bright main stars of the constellation are easier to see, and a host of other dim stars can be seen as well.

It also turns out that if I have more magnification and light gathering available through the use of a telescope, that more can be seen. This further study of the constellation yields a beautiful pair of stars visible in binoculars, each of which is a double star (and that division can only be seen with a telescope). This is Episilon Lyrae, the "double double", and it turns out that it is only one of many interesting double stars in the sky. In addition, the constellation holds a beautiful light cloud called the ring nebula right inbetween beta and gamma Lyrae. And the ring nebula is only one of a large group of fuzzy light clouds that are collectively the Messier objects.

This is the reason that I have taken the time to get aquainted with the "official" names of the constellations. Those name and the recongnition of the constellation in the sky is the index to finding all sorts of other beauty.

Here is a list of constellations that are easy to see in the evening sky this time of year (February) Orion is the most recognizable with his belt of three stars, and dangling from his belt are jewels worth looking at with binoculars and telescopes. Canis Major, (big dog) is below and to the left of him. At the heart of the big dog is a beautiful open cluster of stars that can be seen with binoculars and is a marvel with a small telescope. The oval ring of Aurigua contains three pretty open clusters of stars. At the foot of the Gemini Twins is another pretty open cluster. Cassiopeia is a small W or M of stars now in the western sky at dark, but it is chock full of wonderful objects to find - including a little version of the "phone home" ET (or the owl if you like). There is a group of 6 or 7 sisters and an arc of stars between Cassiopeia and the sisters that is full of wonders to behold. One of them, a rogue named Algol, winks down in brightness every 3 days for a few hours and has been doing so for thousands of years.

I hope I might have spurred someone to go out and look at some of the constellations and begin learning a pattern of stars that is unfamiliar. I am still learning some of the dimmer constellations and learning how to find objects in relationship to their dimmer members. It remains ultimately fascinating.

If I would recommend one book for the study of constellations, it would be "Stars and Planets" which is a Smithsonian Handbook. This book has a number of great resources, but among them is a section on each of the constellations and some wonderful items to look at in each one.