List Of Constellations
Each culture divides the stars of the night sky into its own set of constellations, usually based on mythology. This article covers the 88 constellations used in modern astronomy, which properly speaking are not patterns of stars, as in the common use of the word, but areas of the sky (the celestial sphere).
The ancient Babylonians, and later the Greeks (as recorded by Ptolemy), established most of the northern constellations in international use today. When European explorers mapped the stars of the southern skies, European and American astronomers proposed new constellations for that region, as well as ones to fill gaps between the traditional constellations. Not all of these proposals caught on, but in 1922, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) adopted the modern list of 88 constellations. After this, Eugène Delporte drew up precise boundaries for each constellation, so that every point in the sky belonged to exactly one constellation.
Read more about List Of Constellations: Modern Constellations, Former Constellations, Asterisms
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