Constellations

If you've ever gone to a place that isn't very light-polluted at night, like a campsite, a beach, or even a forest(assuming you can see above the trees), you may have seen tiny, bright dots illuminating the sky. Many of these dots are luminous stars individually but there are many instances that these stars create patterns or "shapes" with other stars. These shapes and patterns are known as constellations.

Constellations are one of the most intriguing aspects of astronomy because they can be directly observed easily by amateur astronomers(observers who aren't professional). Oftentimes, they take up the shapes of mythological figures because people throughout history have associated constellations with their cultures and beliefs.

However, constellations can play an important role in observational astronomy. Because they carve out distinct patterns relative to us, one can easily map out the night sky by dividing up the sky into constellations. This may sound abnormal because not all constellations have the same size so the regions won't have the same size either. However, as mentioned before, constellations are amongst the most recognizable objects in the sky so it is easy to classify distant objects by which constellation they fall in sometimes. However, classifying astronomical objects within their galaxies and stellar systems or simply mapping the celestial coordinates are usually more useful. Below is a list of the topics for this unit:

The Zodiac

Canis Major

Cassiopeia

Cygnus

Orion

Ursa Major

Ursa Minor