Constellations, here’s how to recognize the main ones

This summer, amaze everyone with your “astronomical” skills! Here is an easy guide to “impress” under the stars and enjoy a beautiful night trying to know and recognize the stars that populate it.(Image by Soorelis on Pixabay)

11 p.m. A summer night. Mediterranean Sea. Rada. The sea smooth as an oil. The moon has set and the sky is a carpet of stars. He and she are lying on the bow of a sailboat. He: “Have you ever thought about how small we are compared to the universe?” She: “Mmm.” He: “And to how much the sky is the best way to realize how elusive the concept of infinity is?” She: “zzzzzz.” Dear sailors, we are not there.

If you really want to “show us the stars,” try telling us their story. The suggestion is great: the constellations that we commonly see in summer in our hemisphere are the same ones that the ancient Greeks named. These ancient astronomers tried to recognize earthly creatures or mythological figures in the sky and embroidered wonderful stories on them. Moving away by boat from the artificial lights and lying on your stomach, it is easy to recognize the constellations featured in these stories.

THE SUMMER CONSTELLATIONS

Great Bear (Big Dipper)
The most famous of all the northern constellations represents the nymph Callisto transformed out of jealousy into Bear by Zeus’s wife and taken to the heavens by the latter.

Ursa Minor (Little Dipper)
Moving northeastward from the last star in the chariot’s “handlebar” (the Alkaid star) we meet its younger brother. This constellation includes the North Star, the last star in the “handlebar” and the nighttime guide of navigators to whom it points to the Celestial North Pole. Mythologically, she represents one of the nymphs who raised the newborn Zeus.

Cassiopeia
To the northeast of Ursa Minor we find Cassiopeia, recognizable by its “W” shape. It is on the opposite side of Ursa Major from Polaris, so when Ursa is low on the horizon Cassiopeia is high. Wife of the Ethiopian king Cepheus, she was confined to heaven for excessive vanity.

Giraffe
South of Cassiopeia we find the Giraffe, an irregular quadrilateral with three legs, identifiable because it is located in a dark region of the sky very close to the very bright star Capella. It represents the giraffe ridden by Rebecca to go to her wedding with Isaac in Canaa.

Swan
One of the most beautiful northern constellations, also called the Northern Cross because of its shape. It is positioned in the middle of the Milky Way, and the top of the cross is Deneb, a very bright and easily recognizable star. The Swan is a camouflage of Zeus, who transforms into this animal to conquer the nymph Nemesis.

Dolphin
To the east of the Swan we find the Dolphin. A rhombus with a tail spreading southward; the Dolphin is the messenger of Poseidon, god of the sea.

Lira
Lyra is the constellation that is home to Vega, one of the brightest stars in our hemisphere that is practically at Zenith during the summer. This constellation is found to the west of the Swan and is shaped like a parallelepiped with a developed arm to the right of the upper side-the limit of this extension is Vega. The Lyre is the musical instrument used by Orpheus to bewitch the Sirens.

Eagle
Before we say good night, let’s talk about the Eagle, a beautiful summer constellation that houses within it the very bright star Altair, which means “flying eagle” in Arabic. Positioned south of the Swan, it has a triangular shape with an arm extending westward from the high vertex. According to Greek myth, the eagle was the bird of Zeus.

Stella Cherubini

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