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Constellation Presentation

Constellations are groups of stars that appear to form patterns or pictures in the sky. People connect the brighter stars in constellations and give them names from myths and legends. Astronomers use Latin names for constellations. The stars within a constellation are not necessarily close together in space and can differ in brightness. There are 88 officially recognized constellations that were identified by ancient Greeks and astronomers in the 17th-18th centuries.

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391 views13 pages

Constellation Presentation

Constellations are groups of stars that appear to form patterns or pictures in the sky. People connect the brighter stars in constellations and give them names from myths and legends. Astronomers use Latin names for constellations. The stars within a constellation are not necessarily close together in space and can differ in brightness. There are 88 officially recognized constellations that were identified by ancient Greeks and astronomers in the 17th-18th centuries.

Uploaded by

Gary Rose
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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What is a constellation?

Constellation is a group of stars which appears to form a picture in the sky.


People connect the brighter stars with another them names of characters in myths and give or legends.

Astronomers use Latin names for Constellations. For example, the southern cross is called Crux (the Latin word for cross)

Its a constellation.

The stars in a constellation are not necessarily located near each other in the space.
Example :
the four bright stars in crux are not all the same distance from earth.

The stars in a constellation also differ in brightness, such as some of them are brighter than the others.

Constellations
The stars in the sky are separated into 88 constellations

48 of them are found in the second century by ancient greek


There are also numerous historical constellations and regional traditions of astronomy/astrology (such as Chinese, hindu or Australian Aboriginal) not recognized by IAU.

astronomers. The rest are found in the 17th and 18th century.

Some example of the 88 constellations :

Libra

Hercules
Scorpius

Although there are many constellations, each year the sun appears to move through only twelve of them.
These twelve constellations make up the Zodiac.

Page 286

Although there are many constellations, each year the sun appears to move through only twelve of them.
These twelve constellations make up the Zodiac.

Page 286

To identify the brightness of stars, in 1603 a German astronomer called Johann Bayer thought up a system of naming stars.

Each star in a constellation was given a letter of the Greek alphabet according to its brightness.

Delta

Gamma

ALPHA star

BETA star

The Greek letter was followed by the name of the galaxy in which the star was found.
So, it goes like this in a constellation :

In symbols..

Symbols used in constellation diagrams. Alpha being the brightest, beta second brightest, then comes gamma, delta, epsilon( ) and so on.

Stannard,P.1991. Science Now Book 3. Melbourne; Anteater Publications. Page 189-190.


Dolan,C.2011.What are constellations. http://www.astro.wisc.edu/~dolan/constellations/extra/constellations.htm l [accesed 28 november 2011]

Plotner,T. 2009. What is a constellation?. http://www.universetoday.com/38308/what-is-a-constellation/ [ accesed 16 November 2011]


Heinemann,P. 2009. Science Dimension 2. Pearson Australia. Page 285286 Wikipedia. 2011. Constellations. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constellation [accessed 28 November 2011]

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