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The classical contellations are all based on mythology, animals, or simple objects, and frankly, you need fairly large grain of salt to see what the names imply. I'd like to see some new ones created which would not have been possible when the original ones were conceived, ones that look like actual
objects, such as the bicycle, the locomotive, or the mobile phone.
The Southern Constellations
http://www.astromax...on-page/con-sth.htm
Named in modern times by European scientists. [baconbrain, Jan 28 2009]
Best viewed from Halfiax, Candya
Halfbakery_20Constellations
[phundug, Jan 28 2009]
A History of Star Catalogues
It could be fired o...ointed I am to find
Not constellations but naming & re-naming of stars happens quite a lot. [DrBob, Jan 30 2009]
Aboriginal astronomy
http://www.atnf.csi...tronomy/culture.htm
[UnaBubba, Jan 30 2009]
Man vs Rabbit
http://www-istp.gsf.../StarFAQ12.htm#q188
It's all about orientation. [csea, Jan 30 2009]
Auckland
http://www.glen.co....00--001--Scaled.jpg
"Upside down" [nineteenthly, Jan 31 2009]
Iceland
http://farm1.static...27_15dc02c465_m.jpg
"Right way up" [nineteenthly, Jan 31 2009]
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But in a few years time, no-one would be able to recognise The Great VCR |
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Ursa Major & Ursa Minor could become BetaMax and BetaMini |
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"Mad" magazine did an updated zodiac in the early 1960's. |
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I think that this is exactly what happened when European explorers first saw the southern skies. |
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See link for The Pump, The Compass, The Clock, The Microscope, The Carpenter's Square. |
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"Well, there's… Jerry the Cowboy. And that big dipper looking thing is Alan… the Cowboy." - Homer Simpson |
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I want there to be a Great and Little Koala.
They could be updated periodically, for instance the Sextant could become the Satnav and Vela the Solar Panel. Come to think of it, there are already loads of navigational devices up there already. How about sponsoring them? |
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The Credit Card,
The Chainsaw,
The Equine-Human DNA experiment,
The Gyroscope,
The Stealth Bomber,
The GPU,
The Guided Missile,
The Dollar Sign,
The Tazer,
The Tokamak,
The Chemotherapy Unit,
The Clock of the Long Now,
The Pogonophore,
The South Asian,
The TV Dinner,
The Particle Accelerator,
The Anthrax Envelope,
The Digital Tape Measure,
The Metrosexual,
The Picture of Dorian Gray,
The Graphics Tablet,
The Tailplane,
The Multimeter,
The Porcelain Filter,
The HST,
The Budgerigar,
The Polygon,
The Solar Panel,
The Windsurfer. |
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How about "The constellation namer"? |
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Name them after superheroes. (Partially Invisible Man still cracks me up.) |
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The Asterism, The Appearance of Physical Proximity, The Stochastic Field, The Random Distribution, The Emergent Image, The Pattern Recognition, The Planisphere, The Planetarium, The Night Sky, The Technically-Still-A-Virgin, The Melanoma, The Big Bright Star, The List. |
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"Oh Momma [jutta], you are so learned". |
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There were so many fewer questions when stars were just the holes to heaven. |
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Well we can't go changing every generation perhaps we should think about objects that will be recognizable in the future. the cell phone I give no chance of being recognizable in the future it will probably be something implanted or glued to your thumbnail or pinky finger. A bicycle will probably always have two wheels lets think of some other things that should be recognizable. perhaps well established forms that are used in engineering like a propeller? maybe we will always have animals, dogs and lions and bears and farm animals I figure people have a taste for beef so we will keep them from dieing out. like universal and timeless things. |
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The cellphone clearly will be recognisable in the future, since the future, which for us humans will be rather short, will involve scratching a living by raking through the non-biodegradable debris of our civilisation, and all the stuff we've made will be ineradicable from our environment.
Having said that, maybe Norma should become the Beatles, thus:
Gamma two - John.
Epsilon - George.
Iota one - Paul.
Eta - Ringo.
The dimmer stars could be named after the various "fifth Beatles", and Yoko Ono should be in there as something which completely ruins the impression of a square shape.
Then there´s the Stones. |
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//A bicycle will probably always have two wheels //
Only if invented by the French.
"And over there, my son, at the very zenith, is The Hullaballoon". |
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There would be lots of constellations called "The LED" |
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Re: the idea. Nah! I like the old names. |
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//Like the Beatles?// A little; what of it? |
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I've just realised that if there were a smaller square, the larger one would be called Norma Major. Maybe there could be a Morris Minor. |
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This whole topics leaves the black bits of the sky completely
un-named. |
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I understand the Australian Aborigines did just that - they named the dark bits and didn't bother with the stars. I want to believe that's true. |
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Not quite true, [19thly] but there is a grain of truth in it. Many of the 400 separate cultures that were present in Australia prior to European settlement recognised an elongated pattern of dark patches in the Milky Way that looks somewhat like an emu. |
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Given the emu image was a common theme in almost all of the disparate Aboriginal cultures, despite there being very little commonality between languages across those 400-odd cultures it is welcome to hear the story come from an overseas source. It is apparently more easily recognisable than the contrived constellation shapes imposed on us by Europeans' overly fertile imaginations or the entirely different constellations recognised and embraced by the Chinese, Egyptian and Mayan cultures. |
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The 850 or so separate cultures of Papua & New Guinea were also apparently prolific in their naming of constellations. Many of the Highlands tribes were good astronomers, using the position of stars and their seasonal periods of invisibility to calculate planting and sowing times for what is the oldest continual practice of farming agriculture on the planet, at almost 20,000 years. |
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Brilliant, thanks [UB]. Where was the emu? Is it discernable to you when you look up at night?
Another shape in the sky which i've long thought obvious is the rabbit in the Moon. I know more than one set of people can see something like that and i can never make out a face in it. I wonder if that means i'm on the autistic spectrum. |
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That's interesting. I've heard that there is a man visible on the face of the moon from one hemisphere and a rabbit from the other. I've never had any time for the story as I feel there is insufficient parallax variance for there to be any visible difference from pole to pole, let alone at the warmer latitudes, of the pattern of craters on the moon. |
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Given our willingness to see facial patterns in everything we look at I'm also surprised that some people say it looks like a rabbit. I can "see" a rabbit if I take the time to draw a rabbit around the darker crater shadows. |
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Ubie, it's not a question of parallax but of orientation. The
"man" in the moon is right-way-up for the civilised world, but
would be almost upside-down for you, and therefore much
less recognisable as a face. The rabbit is sideways for us in
the mother land, but still quite recognisable. |
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What a lot of pillock. You look east to see the rising moon and so do I. There's no question of orientation in the equation at all. If I'm looking east then north is still to my left, same as you. |
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- and if we looked East while standing on our heads, we'd have the same view of the moon as you do (sort of).
As far as the idea goes, I fear the process of naming new constellations would fall victim to commercial interests, in the same way that all sports stadiums are now named after big corporations. Stargazing just wouldn't be the same ("oooh, is that the Lexus?" - "No that's over there, next to the Microsoft Zune Digital Media Player - you're looking at the World of Leather MASSIVE SALE NOW ON!!! - it's pretty, isn't it?"). |
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[UB], i don't understand why latitude makes a difference but it does. I can't see why an astronomical object would be perceived as having a top and bottom but somehow it has. When Hollywood films show the Moon, it's at the "wrong" angle to me since California is south of here.
Thinking of the Moon from here, fifty-two and a half degrees north, the rabbit's ears look tilted but at the top. I would say the features are as follows:
Ears - Seas of Fecundity and Crises
Head - Sea of Tranquility
Hips - Ocean of Storms. |
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I think the Chinese interpretation at least must be different because there's a pestle and mortar involved and the rabbit is a herbalist for some reason. |
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Maybe herbalists see a rabbit? |
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Anyway, two pictures, one taken from Auckland, one from Iceland, in the links. |
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//This whole topics leaves the black bits of the sky completely un-named.//
Already dealt with, MB. See 'Star Gaps' up in the top right hand corner. |
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Excellent, Dr. B. Delighted to see that someone is filling this
much-needed gap in astronomy. |
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<Stares at feet at smiles modestly> |
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