Constellations

Constellations


What are constellations?

Constellations are a group of stars. The constellations you can see at night depend on your location on the earth and the time of the year. Constellations were named after objects, animals and people long ago. Astronomers today still use constellations to name stars and meteor showers.


Glossary

NGC - New General Catalogue. The catalogue refers to an astronomical catalogue of deep-sky objects compiled by John Louis Emil Dreyer in 1888.

M - Messier. A set of 110 astronomical objects catalogued by the French astronomer Charles Messier. They are a collection of deep-sky objects, such as galaxies, nebulae and star clusters.


What are constellations used for?

They help stargazers and astronomers recognise specific stars in the night sky. In Ancient times, constellations were used to create and track the calendar so they knew when to plant crops and harvest them. They were also used for navigation and help sailors sail across oceans. Once you find Ursa Major, you can easily spot the Northern Star (Polaris) and by using the height of the Northern Star, you could figure out your latitude. People used constellations to tell the difference in the colours. Constellations were also used to group stars. Different places in the world may see different constellations.


What are asterisms?

Asterisms are patterns of stars with shapes and sizes that can range from the very simple, containing just a few stars, to the larger and more complex - with some of these arrangements of stars covering large regions of the sky. Stars within an asterism are usually of similar brightness to each other and might range from bright and visible to the naked eye or distinguishable by a telescope.





Winter Triangle

  • The Winter Triangle asterism, also known as the great Southern Triangle, is a prominent asterism formed by Sirius, Betelgeuse and Procyon, the primary stars in the three winter constellations of Canis Major, Orion and Canis Minor.

  • The Winter Triangle is a prominent asterism in the night sky in the northern hemisphere during the winter months, from December to March.

  • The three stars that form the Winter Triangle are among the brightest stars in the night sky. The Winter Triangle stars are Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, the red supergiant Betelgeuse, which is the ninth brightest star in the sky, and Procyon, the eighth brightest star in the Moon.



How to find the Winter Triangle?

  • Betelgeuse, the star marking the left shoulder of Orion, is just above Alnitak, the eastern-most star of the Belt.

  • Sirius can be found by following a line formed by the Belt stars to the southeast, while Procyon lies to the upper left of Sirius.


Ursa Major

Ursa Major represent Callisto who had a child with Zeus, king of the Greek gods, When Zeus’s wife, Hera found out, she turned Callisto into a bear. Then one day Callisto’s son was out hunting and saw a great bear.


Ursa Minor

Ursa Minor, also called the Little Bear, in astronomy, a constellation of the northern sky, at about 15 hours right ascension and 80 degrees north declination and seven of whose stars outline the Little Dipper.



Ophiuchus

  • Ophiuchus lies between Aquila, Serpens, Scorpius, Sagittarius, and Hercules, northwest of the center of the Milky Way. The southern part lies between Scorpius to the west and Sagittarius to the east. In the northern hemisphere, it is best visible in summer, it is opposite Orion.

  • Ophiuchus is depicted as a man grasping a serpent, the interposition of his body divides the snake constellation Serpens into two parts, Serpens Caput and Serpens Cauda

  • Ophiuchus boasts of numerous globular clusters, for example. The two easiest global clusters to see with ordinary binoculars are M10 and M12. Another big deep-sky favourite is the Pipe-Nebula, a vast interstellar cloud of gas and dust sweeping across about 7 degrees of sky.

  • Asclepius killed a snake with his staff. But another snake dropped some herbs on the dead one, brining it back to life, Asclepius then used those herbs to resurrect the son of king Minos. Business was so good for Asclepius that fewer people were entering the underworld. So Hades, the god of the underworld, complained to Zeus, the king of the gods, Zeus then killed Asclepius with a lightning belt


Orion

  • Orion is a prominent constellation located on the celestial equator and visible throughout the world, it is one of the most conspicuous and recognisable constellations in the night sky, It is named after Orion, a hunter in Greek mythology, it’s brightest stars are Gigel and Betelgeuse (Alpha Oromis)

  • It represents the mythical hunter Orion, who is often depicted in star maps as either facing the charge of Taurus, the bull, pursuing the Pleiades sisters, represented by the famous open cluster, or chasing after the hare (constellation Lepus) with his two hunting dogs.

  • The Orion Molecular Cloud Complex contains most of the well-known deep sky objects in Orion, the Orion Nebula, Bernard’s Loop, the Flame Nebula, the Horsehead Nebula, Messier 43 and Messier 78


Reflections:

In today's lesson, we learnt about Constellations, presented by seniors and we got the chance to Guess constellations and use the Stellarium. This was fun and engaging where we learnt how to identify constellations and navigate with what we learnt in astronomy to be applied in order to help us get to experience, further improve and understand these things we learnt. Learn --> Understand --> Apply --> Reflect --> Remember --> Repeat. The presenter did a good job helping us understand, they showed us their passion and his co-presenter helped out as much as they could whenever they could.