The Night Sky

At night in the sky we see many stars, the planets, the moon, and sometimes a meteor or a comet. If you use your imagination when you look at the stars somtimes you can pretend that you see a dog or a cat or something else.

People long ago did the same thing. They named what they imagined in the sky constellations.

This is a picture of what ancient people thought the constellation Leo looked like
Click on image for full size (630k)
Image: (c)1995 Visual Language, All Rights Reserved

The Night Sky

When we gaze up into the night sky we see many stars, the planets, the moon, and sometimes a meteor or a comet. If we're very lucky we may witness a supernova once or twice in our lifetime. Over the course of days, weeks and months the planets "wander" among the stars which, while they move nightly across the night sky, keep an unvarying relationship to each other, at least at first glance.

Ancient societies noticed this and believed that some stars had a special significance and associated some patterns of the stars with the goddesses, gods, and stories of their culture. These groups of stars are called Constellations.

This is what we see when we first look at the sky
Click on image for full size (84k)

As the World Turns

The Night Sky - An Introduction to Constellations

When we gaze up into the night sky we see many stars, the planets, the moon, and sometimes a meteor or a comet. If we're very lucky we may witness a supernova once or twice in our lifetime. Over the course of days, weeks and months the planets "wander" among the stars which, while they move nightly across the night sky, keep an unvarying relationship to each other, at least at first glance.

Ancient societies noticed this and believed that some stars had a special significance and associated some patterns of the stars with the goddesses, gods, and stories of their culture. These groups of stars are called Constellations.

This is what we see when we first look at the sky
Click on image for full size (84k)

As the World Turns



The source of this material is Windows to the Universe, at http://www.windows.ucar.edu/ at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR). ©1995-1999, 2000 The Regents of the University of Michigan; ©2000-01 University Corporation for Atmospheric Research. All Rights Reserved. Site policies and disclaimer