History of the Constellations and Their Naming

Nancy K. Cox, San Francisco Amateur Astronomers

We modern humans (astronomy-ophiles) are certainly not the first to have looked up and noticed the stars above them at night, wondered at them, saw that they seemed to form patterns, and that they (such as Sirius) seemed to return to the same positions in the sky at the same time of year (which was helpful for early peoples to gauge the seasons, for planting, harvesting, rains, etc.). This is a vast subject covering:

Some of these star patterns were known and very important to the many ancient cultures of the West: Mesopotamia, including Babylon, the Egyptians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Arabs; as well as to the East: the Chinese, who kept many records of the sky. Native peoples of the New World also had their own myths and legends about the same (or similar) star patterns, for example the Great Bear, Ursa Major. The far southern sky was not known to Europeans until the Age of Exploration, and those constellations then got named mostly for modern instruments, for example Microscopium. South Pacific peoples had their own names and myths for these star patterns, for example Scorpius was seen as a fish hook.

Precession moves the constellation containing the Vernal Equinox. In a few centuries we’ll reach the “dawning of the Age of Aquarius”.

Bring your own knowledge, expertise, and reading on various aspects of this topic. I’ve been too busy to study it all myself, what with a new job and packing to move by the end of the month. Group members should fill in gaps in my own reading: Chinese, mediaeval, Bayer, IAU boundaries, ...

References

I hope it’s not too unreliable, but again I’ve used Richard H. Allen’s Star Names, Their Lore and Meaning (Dover, 1963), as well as other standard constellation guides.

Bradley Schaeffer, “The Origin of the Greek Constellations”, Scientific American, November 2006.