Constellations are formed of bright stars which appear close to each other on the sky, but are really far apart in space. The shapes you see all depend on your point of view. Many societies saw patterns among the stars with gods and goddesses or stories from their culture. read more
The constellations are formed with all type of stars from O to M where O represent those stars that are hottest and M being the coolest and of all Luminosity types from I - Luminous Supergiant to V dwarf. The one exception are the red dwarfs, type M stars roughly .5 to .1 Solar Radius. read more
Astronomers now often use constellations in the naming of stars. The International Astronomical Union, the world authority for assigning names to celestial objects, officially recognizes 88 constellations. Usually, the brightest star in a constellation has "alpha," the first letter of the Greek alphabet, as part of its scientific name. read more