What is the life of one constellation?

A constellation is just a collection of stars that seem to line up when viewed from Earth. All stars are moving and mostly at different speeds. Constellations will change and then be lost. read more

Other types: still-lifes, pseudo-still-lifes, oscillators, pseudo-oscillators, oscillators by period, pseudo-oscillators by period, guns, multi-colored Life, basic spaceships and pseudo-spaceships, exotic spaceships, spaceships flotillae, puffers, constellations, methuselahs, not quite stable objects. read more

The current list of 88 constellations recognized by the International Astronomical Union since 1922 is based on the 48 listed by Ptolemy in his Almagest in the 2nd century, with early modern modifications and additions (most importantly introducing constellations covering the parts of the southern sky unknown to Ptolemy) by Petrus Plancius (1592, 1597/98 and 1613), Johannes Hevelius (1690) and Nicolas Louis de Lacaille (1763), who named fourteen constellations and renamed a fifteenth one. read more

Perhaps there is something about the mystery of the night sky that makes people want to tell stories about the constellations. The picture at the left is an ornate star chart printed in 1835. Like the others, it shows the great hunter Orion. In this one, he is holding a lion's head instead of his traditional bow or shield. read more