About Constellations

A few days ago on this blog I began a monthly feature highlighting one of the 88 officially recognized constellations in the celestial realm...Boötes started it off for June.  One thing that's important to note about constellations is that, while they are best learned and observed as patterns of the brighter stars within them that are visible to the naked eye, they are in essence sectors of three-dimensional space projected outward from Earth, so the moon, only about 239,000 miles from us, might one night be "in" one of the zodiac constellations, while elsewhere "in" it in lie billions of galaxies untold light-years distant.  The constellations also vary in size, with smaller ones more predominant in the Southern Hemisphere.  Boötes does not lie on the ecliptic, home of the twelve zodiac constellations, so therefore the sun, moon, and planets on that plane in our solar system do not pass through it...but just south of it is the constellation Libra where they do.  Sometimes the patterns you get from "connecting the dots" of a constellation's stars resemble its description...Scorpius truly looks like a scorpion...while some do not, as is the case of Corvus, supposedly a crow but coming across more as an irregular quadrilateral in the May evening sky.  The more precise way to locate a celestial object in the sky is by its declination and right ascension, corresponding respectively to Earth's latitude and longitude...the right ascension is expressed in hours, minutes and seconds with one celestial hour representing 15 degrees east or west.  But to me it's easier to locate something based on its constellation, just as on Earth it's easier to do likewise if you know the country.  I'm looking forward to discussing all this further next month when I select a new constellation...