TYPES OF

THE
CONSTELLATION
CONSTELLATION

In

modern astronomy, a constellation is an internationally defined area

of the celestial sphere. These areas are grouped
aroundasterisms (which themselves are generally referred to in non-
technical language as "constellations"), which are patterns formed by
prominent stars within apparent proximity to one another on
Earth's night sky.

There are also numerous historical constellations not recognized

by the IAU or constellations recognized in regional traditions of
astronomy or astrology, such as Chinese, Hindu and Australian
Aboriginal.

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THE FOUR FAMOUS
CONSTELLATIONS
Southern

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 Crux, the
Southern Cross, is
the most familiar constellation in the southern hemisphere. This tiny constellation
(the smallest in the entire sky) was once part of Centaurus, but the sight of such a
brilliant cross in the sky was so compelling that it became a constellation of its
own in the sixteenth century.Besides the cross itself, the constellation contains a
unique dark nebula, a famous star cluster, and a remarkable binary.

Apart from the four bright stars that form the cross, the
constellation's stars are generally fourth-magnitude. Note that
A B
while gamma and gamma are labelled as binary components, these stars only
form an optical double. The two theta stars are also not gravitationally bound to
each other; on the other hand mu1 and mu2 do form a binary system (see below).

Thousands of years ago these four stars were an object of reverence in the
countries of the Near East. In the Biblical days, two thousand years ago, they were
just visible at the horizon. Some might find a religious connotation, linking their
disappearance with the Crucifixion of Christ. Over the millennia precession has
brought the cross far to the south; it is no longer visible at latitudes north of 25
degrees.

It was the European explorers of the early sixteenth century who

"rediscovered" the Southern Cross. For these adventurers the constellation was an
important clock, for when it passed the meridian it was (more or less) straight up
and down. Thus, by studying the constellation's inclination from the perpendicular,
navigators could calculate their present time.

The principal star of note in the constellation is Acrux (alpha Crucis), a

splendid binary (see below). The combined visual magnitude of both stars results
in a magnitude of 0.72. The stars are 320 light years away, and each is
approximately one and a half to twice the size of our Sun.

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 Alpha Crucis has an apparent proper motion of 236. (That is, from our
viewpoint, it seems to be moving very slowly in this direction.) Others in this
constellation with similar motions, and therefore part of a moving star cluster,
are beta, delta, zeta, lambda, and mu Crucis. The group as a whole is quite large,
forming what is called the "Scorpio-Centaurus Association". See Burnham for a
discussion on this cluster.

Beta Crucis (Mimosa) is the brightest star of the group, a blue-white giant
(nearly five times the Sun's size) with a visual magnitude of 1.25. The star is an
estimated 580 light years away, and has a luminosity of nearly 8000. The star is a
variable (see below)

Gamma Crucis (Gacrux) forms the top of the cross. The reported distance
may be erroneous; it's been calculated from the visual and absolute magnitudes.
The resulting parallax is so large that it should be measurable.

Although gammaA and gammaB have been so named because of a suspected

duplicity (that is, that they form a binary system) the facts are different. The stars
are moving in different directions (174 degrees, 129 degrees) and are therefore not
held together gravitationally.

Delta Crucis is the western arm, very similar in size and distance to alpha
Crucis, and part of the star cluster mentioned above. The star is a beta-CMa type
variable (see below).

Big Dipper

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 Since the Big Dipper is part of the constellation Ursa Major (The Great
Bear), it is technically not a constellation. It's what is called an asterism, which is
the name given to interesting star patterns that are easily recognizable, but not
one of the "official" constellations.

Be that as it may, the Big Dipper is probably one of the first objects in the
sky that we learn to find and identify. It's distinctive position at the top of the
summer night sky and the graceful curve of its handle make it easy for almost
anyone to find.
The link at right will take you to a map of the Ursa Major constellation where you
will see where the Big Dipper is in relation to the actual constellation.

The Big Dipper is very impressive all by itself, but it also is very close to a
number of other very interesting sights. Included in these sights, and noted on the
map at right, are the Pinwheel galaxy and the Whirlpool galaxy. If you have a good
pair of binoculars or a small telescope, you should be able to find these galaxies
using the map we have provided. When you find them, they will usually look like a
small smudge of light instead of the sharp well-defined light that you are used to
seeing when you look at a star.

There are also several double stars in the Big Dipper, which you should be
able to see using a small telescope. All in all, the Big Dipper is a very interesting
place indeed.

As you spend more time watching the sky, you will learn that the stars in
one constellation can help lead you to other sky landmarks. The Big Dipper is no
exception as you can use two of the stars in its "cup" to find the North Star and you
can use the arc of its handle to find the giant red star Arcturus.
As the Big Dipper rotates around our north sky "pole", in what is caled a

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"circumpolar" orbit, two of the stars in its bowl can always ppoint the way to
Polaris, the North Star. Although Polaris is not often at exactly North on a compass,
it's fairly close and can help you get your directions when you are outside at night.

Terence Dickinson's book "Nightwatch", which we have a link to on the main

Constellations page, has many examples of using constellations and their stars to
find your way around the night sky. We recommend it highly.

In the United States, during the nineteenth century, African-Americans that

were being held as slaves in the south made very practical use of the Big Dipper's
consistent northern sky location. The Big Dipper was also known as the Drinking
Gourd and slaves trying to make their way to freedom used it as a guidepost to
find their way North and escape the bonds of slavery.
The lyrics of folk song "Follow the Drinking Gourd" served as guide to help them
find their way north and its chorus reminded them to always follow the Drinking
Gourd, or Big Dipper.

The very best time to look at the Big Dipper is in the middle of the summer,
when it is easily found on any clear night in the northernmost part of the night sky.
Once you are outside, look in the northern sky and try to find it handle. The arc of
the handle will stand out and once you have found the handle, finding the bowl is
easy. Once you have found the entire Big Dipper, use the charts we have to find
Polaris and Arcturus. You will be surprised at how easy it is.

Scorpion

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 Most of the constellations seem pretty much random arrangements of stars to
modern eyes. Scorpius is one of the few which actually resembles its namesake, the
Scorpion.

As seen by observers in the Northern Hemisphere, Scorpius appears like a

giant scorpion peeking over our southern horizon. With a fairly small body, marked
by the red giant star Antares, the scorpion has three stars in front representing its
claws, and a long curving tail behind, ending in two bright stars marking its stinger. If
you live in Canada or the northern USA, part of the Scorpius' tail will be below the
horizon, but more southern observers will see the whole beast of a constellation.

Antares (Alpha Scorpii) is one of the brightest stars in the sky, and one of the
few with an obvious red color. This color reminded ancient observers of the red
planet Mars, hence its name, which means "not Mars," Ares being the Greek for
Mars. In large amateur telescopes, this red giant is seen to have a tiny companion
star. Because of the primary star's vivid red color, the companion often appears
greenish, which is an optical illusion, since there are no green stars. [ Amazing Night
Sky Photos: June 2013]

Orion
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 THE
EARTH

Orion the Hunter is one of the most familar and best known constellations. There is
extensive and varied mythology about this beautiful collection of stars, but the most common
Greek legend has Orion as a giant huntsman, and he appears in this role in
Homer's Odyessy. The most persistent legend seems to be that he died from the sting of a
giant scorpion, which was placed in the sky so that Orion sets as the Scorpius rises, in an
eternal chase across the sky.

The momorable outline of the Hunter proudly bestrides the celestial equator and is
equally visible from both hemispheres. The distinctive, equally spaced line of stars of Orion's
Belt are more or less on the equator and are framed by quartet of bright and colourful stars.
More subtle is Orions short sword, hanging from his belt. Under dark skies or in binoculars
the central 'star' is distinctly misty. This is the famous Orion nebula, one of many well known
telescopic objects that fill this part of the sky.

The westernmost Orion Belt star delta Orionis (Minkata) is about a quarter of a
degree of arc south of the celestial equator and all three belt stars are within 2 degrees of it.
This means they rise and set due east or west of the observer and track the equator across
the sky during the night, tracing straight lines as seen in this star trail photograph made from
Siding Spring in Australia. Note that Orion is upside down as seen from the southern
hemisphere, where it is often called 'the saucepan', with the Belt stars forming the base and
the Sword stars the handle.

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 Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the
eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's
four terrestrial planets. It is sometimes referred to as the world or the Blue Planet.

Earth formed approximately 4.54 billion years ago, and life appeared on its
surface within its first billion years.Earth's biosphere then significantly altered the
atmospheric and other basic physical conditions, which enabled the proliferation
of organisms as well as the formation of the ozone layer, which together with Earth's
magnetic field blocked harmful solar radiation, and permitted formerly ocean-
confined life to move safely to land.The physical properties of the Earth, as well as
its geological history and orbit, have allowed life to persist. Estimates on how much
longer the planet will be able to continue to support life range from 500 million years
(myr), to as long as 2.3 billion years (byr).

Earth's lithosphere is divided into several rigid segments, or tectonic plates,

that migrate across the surface over periods of many millions of years. About 71% of
the surface is covered by salt water oceans, with the remainder consisting of
continents and islands which together have many lakes and other sources of water
that contribute to the hydrosphere. Earth's poles are mostly covered with ice that is
the solid ice of theAntarctic ice sheet and the sea ice that is the polar ice packs. The
planet's interior remains active, with a solid iron inner core, a liquid outer core that
generates the magnetic field, and a thick layer of relatively solid mantle.

Earth gravitationally interacts with other objects in space, especially the Sun
and the Moon. During one orbit around the Sun, the Earth rotates about its own axis
366.26 times, creating 365.26 solar days, or one sidereal year.The Earth's axis of
rotation is tilted 23.4 away from the perpendicular of its orbital plane, producing
seasonal variations on the planet's surface with a period of one tropical year (365.24
solar days).The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It began orbiting the Earth
about 4.53 billion years ago (bya). The Moon's gravitational interaction with Earth

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stimulates ocean tides, stabilizes the axial tilt, and gradually slows the planet's
rotation.

The planet is home to millions of species of life, including humans.Both

the mineral resources of the planet and the products of thebiosphere contribute
resources that are used to support a global human population.[30] These inhabitants
are grouped into about 200 independent sovereign states, which interact through
diplomacy, travel, trade, and military action. Human cultures have developed many
views of the planet, including its personification as a planetary deity, its shape as flat,
its position as the center of the universe, and in the modern Gaia Principle, as a
single, self-regulating organism in its own right.

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 THE

The sun is a star. It is the star round which the earth and other planets revolve. In a
way, we can say that sun is the head of solar family or solar system. Compared with the
millions of other stars, the sun is a medium sized star and of average brightness. The sun
appears to be larger and brighter because it is much more nearer to the earth than any other
star. Thus, the star nearest to the earth is the sun. Though sun is the nearest star to the earth,
even then it is at a distance of 150 x 106kilometres from the earth and light, travelling at a
great speed of 300,000 kilometres per second, takes about 8 minutes to reach us from the sun.

But light takes about 4.3 years to reach us from the next nearest star called alpha
centuari. The sun is a mass of hot gases, about 109 times bigger in size than the earth;
330,000 times as heavy as the earth and about 150 x 10 6 kilometres away from the earth. The
diameter of the sun is about 14 x 105 kilometres. The sun is a big ball of fire. The temperature
at the surface of the sun is about 6000C while the temperature at its centre is about 20
million degrees Celsius. Please note that sun is the only star having a known system of
planets with life on one of its planets, called earth.

The sun is not a solid body. It consists mostly of hydrogen gas. In the centre of the
sun, hydrogen atoms are continuously combining to produce atoms of helium. Each time an
atom of helium is formed, tremendous amount of energy is released in the form of heat and

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 THE
light. It is this energy
which makes the sun
shine. The planets and
other objects in the sky

MOON
reflect a part of the sunlight
falling on them due to which they become visible to us.

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 The occur of the The
moon is
our
closest
day and night
neighbor in space and is the brightest and largest object to be seen in the night sky. In reality
it is very tiny compared to the planets and stars. It looks big to us because it is the nearest to
our earth, only 384,400 kilometers away. Compare this distance with earths distance from
the Sun. The Soviet probe Luna 2 landed on the moon for the first time in September 1959,
while the USA landed the first men on the moon on 21 st July 1969. What were their names ?
Who was the first man to step on the moons surface ?

We know today that the surface of the moon is dusty and full of craters that were
formed between 4.6 to 3.5 billion years ago. In the early years of the formation of the solar
system, thousands of meteorites bombarded the moon to form these craters. These craters
have been carefully preserved, because the moon has no atmosphere, volcanoes, water or
earthquakes, which would change the appearance of its surface. The moon surface gets very
hot during the day (165oC) and becomes very cold at night. Temperature dips down to as low
as minus 155oC. Do you think that life can exist on the moon in such conditions?

The moon spins on its axis almost exactly in the time it takes to journey around the
Earth, i.e. eastward in 27.3 days. Scientists explain that the earths gravity has braked the
moons spin gradually. It was faster earlier. As a result, we see the same side of the moon
the nearer side. The far side was seen only after October 1959. Each night the shape of the
moon seems to change. These changes are called the phases of the moon.

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 THE PHASES OF
THE MOON

Day
and night are caused by the rotation of the Earth on its axis. There are
two basic types of day. The Sidereal Day is the time it takes for the
Earth to rotate in relation to the distant stars; its length is 23 hours 56
minutes and 4 seconds.

The Solar Day is the time it takes for the Earth to return to the
same orientation with respect to the Sun; its length averages exactly
24 hours.

The difference arises because the Earth moves about one degree
around its orbit over the course of a day, and must rotate a little more
for a given point on Earth to exactly face the Sun again. In the
remainder of this section, we shall use the term day to indicate the 24-
hour solar day.

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 The moon is the Earths only natural satellite. As the Earth moves round the sun, so
the moon in turn revolves round the Earth. As it orbits the Earth, the moon also turns on its
axis. The time taken to complete one rotation is the same as that taken for one orbit- about 29
days. So the same side of the moon always faces the Earth.

The moon has no light of its own and shines only because it reflects the suns light. As
it turns on its axis only once in a journey round the Earth, each part of its surface has first
about two weeks of darkness and then about two weeks of sunlight.

When the moon comes between the Earth and the sun it is invisible because the face
turned towards the Earth is in darkness and sunlight is falling on the hidden side. This is the
time of new moon. A few days later, a thin crescent moon is seen in the western sky, as the
moon advances along its orbit and the sun begins to light up the side turned towards the
Earth. The crescent grows larger, as sunlight advances across the moons disc. At full moon
the whole disc can be seen after which the moon wanes, or grows smaller. The moon takes a
lunar month (29 of our days) to go through these phases, or changes of shape.

NUM CONTENT PAGE

.
1. The 1
15
 constellation
2. THEof
The types 2-8
INDEX
constellation
3. The occur of 9 - 13
day and night
4. The phases of 14
the moon

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