Constellations

Being asked most people would name the xii constellations of the zodiac and some more they have heard of or even seen (most common is surely the Big Dipper, though it is not a constellation unless an asterism). In total there are 88 constellations, which can be divided into eight constellation families (see Menzel, A Field Guide to the Stars and Planetes). many names we use nowadays came from the ancient Greeks. They used to assign their gods and heroes to certain(p) figures in the sky. Due to their northern location they only(prenominal) gave names to those regions obvious from their countries.The regions around the celestial south pole got some of their names when the lotus-eater Johan Bayer made his notes about the south regions of the sky. He followed the tradition of the names of the ancient, mainly connected to the sea and its creatures. Later on the french astronomer La Caille added the last 13 to fill the star-poor regions between the existing groups. He finally broke with the traditional namegiving and used scientific equipment or instruments (there is only one exception, which is Mensa, the Table Mountain).It should be noted that although now common, this is only the Hesperian view of the star patterns. Noone knows when mankind start giving names to stars and class of stars. It is most likely that constellation names were invented by early sailors for gliding purposes. only if also in the deserts they might have been a good help for the people to find their ways. Therefore its quite of course that each culture grouped the stars differently and gave them names from their natural and societal enviroment.The constellations of the zodiac we know nowadays reach back to the days of the Babylonians and Chaldeans, 2000 to 3000 years ago. affirm then the solarize passes through twelve constellations we still assign to the zodiac. But since these old days there have been several changes to the assignment of the stars. The sun is now passing throu gh thirdteen constellations along the ecliptic. After the sun left field Scorpius in the last week of November it moves through Ophiuchus, the Serpent Holder, in declination before reaching Sagittarius, the Archer, end of December.