The 88 Constellations

About the 88 constellations

A constellation is a pattern of stars the eye joins into a figure, and a region of sky around it. The International Astronomical Union fixed the modern list at 88 in the 1920s and drew exact boundaries between them, so today the whole sky is divided into 88 regions and every star belongs to exactly one. The patterns come from many traditions: the Greek heroes and beasts of the northern sky, and the navigators' and explorers' instruments, birds and fish charted across the far southern sky in later centuries.

The map is built from real star positions in the Hipparcos catalog, with every naked-eye star placed where it truly sits and drawn larger when it is brighter. Turn on the figure lines to connect the dots into the traditional shapes, and follow the yellow ecliptic, the Sun's path, to pick out the zodiac constellations strung along it. A constellation is best seen when it climbs high in the evening sky, which happens at a different time of year for each one, listed as its best month. The twelve zodiac constellations are those the Sun passes in front of through the year.

To see what is actually up tonight from where you are, open Today in the Sky, track the Moon through the month on the Moon Phase Calendar, or learn why the patterns slowly shift over millennia on the precession page.

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