What's your favorite constellation?

[Deja Q]

Poll question: What's your favorite constellation?

Tonight, just at the right point, I took some pics of Orion, while it's still on our side. I'm developing them in the computer now... I had to overexpose the image to get the stars themselves, but that creates a surreal effect for the background objects (some trees and a building that was unavoidable...) If they're good enough, I'll post a link to them... :D

[greatauntoftriplets]

1. The Southern Cross.

I dare to be different.

[pmbryant]

12. Excellent choice!

I had the good fortune to spy the Southern Cross (aka "Crux") a few times back when I lived in Hawaii. Even there, it barely poked above the horizon.

I would love to stargaze from the southern hemisphere someday.

:-)

--Peter

[greatauntoftriplets]

14. I've seen it in the waters of the Caribbean near Grenada.

First time was 1986 when I (dimly) saw Halley's Comet.

[pmbryant]

20. Wow

Sounds like you had a much better vantage point for seeing Halley's than I did back then. I never did see it without binoculars. And even with them, only dimly. The two big 1990s comets (Hyakutake and Hale-Bopp) were so much more spectacular.

Anyway, Halley's was so far south at its best, that from Chicago, it was just going to barely poke above the horizon. On a whim, I talked my mother into taking my homemade 6" telescope and going with me on a driving trip south. As far as we could get in a few hours of driving. (I was 17 years old at the time.) We ended up at some obscure state park in some tiny town in middle-of-nowhere rural southeastern Illinois. The park was deserted except for the ranger, who agreed to let us camp even though it was closed on weeknights (I was on spring break, I think).

Anyway, the skies were so dark from there (especially for a Chicago boy like me) that I couldn't resist setting up my telescope right then and there, even though Halley's wouldn't be up until just before sunrise. I had a spectacular night examing the universe for the first time under truly dark skies. For the entire night! My poor mother was stuck sleeping in the car, trying to feign interest once in a while in what I was doing.

Seeing Halley's early in the morning as a dim smudge just above the horizon was quite anti-climatic after all the other spectacular sights I'd seen.

Peter

[supernova]

34. Always wanted to see Southern Cross

That's kind a "great white whale hunt" for me. ;-) Someday I'll get nearer the equator.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

2. Andromeda.... the sheer size of it boggles my mind

[Liberal Veteran]

3. Sagittarius and Scorpio....Such a rich field to study...

And the most beautiful portion of the sky on a dark country night.

[Bertha Venation]

5. y'know, I actually now live in a place

where I could SEE the more southern constellations . . . that is, if it weren't for all the tall trees on my southern exposure. They block the southern stars. :(

Okay, before I sound like a complete idiot: the zodiac constellations are more to the south, aren't they? Because I grew up in the city and remember never being able to find them. I could barely see Orion.

[pmbryant]

13. Zodiac is spread equally north and south

Orion is right on the equator, which means it stays in the southern half of the sky for those of us in the northern hemisphere.

--Peter

[Bertha Venation]

31. hmm...

I guess I don't know from northern & southern sky. Where I live (at around the 38th parallel), Orion rises slightly to the south on the horizon, and at its apex, it's directly above my head. :shrug: Guess I should crack an astronomy book.

[flaminbats]

23. Scorpio, with Antares being my favorite star

If the Earth was the size of a basket ball, in comparison our sun would have the volume of an 8 ft. pool, and Antares would have the volume of 4 miles.

http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/sow/antares.html

[Bertha Venation]

4. the Little Dipper (Ursa Minor, that is)

because I'm pedantic and enjoy haughtily telling people the facts when they say "the north star is the brightest star in the sky." :eyes:

[TheMightyFavog]

6. Bootes

I just love the name!

[pmbryant]

15. Ophiuchus

Another great name.

:D

Peter

[chookie]

7. The Pleiades

n/t

[GoddessOfGuinness]

24. Me too! Here's a pic I googled

And another from Hubble:

[Feanorcurufinwe]

8. The 2 bears

[HawkerHurricane]

9. This one!

[TroubleMan]

10. Draco

Don't know why. I just liked it as a kid, when I was big into astronomy.

[opiate69]

11. Orion

Orion, won't you give me your star sign
Orion, get up on the sky-line
I'm high on my hill and I feel fine
Orion, let's sip the heaven's heady wine

Orion, light your lights:
come guard the open spaces
from the black horizon to the pillow where I lie.
Your faithful dog shines brighter than its lord and master
Your jewelled sword twinkles as the world rolls by.
So come up singing above the cloudy cover
Stare through at people who toss fitful in their sleep.
I know you're watching as the old gent by the station
scuffs his toes on old fag packets lying in the street
And silver shadows flick across the closing bistro.
Sweet waiters link their arms and patter down the street,
their words lost blowing on cold winds in darkest Chelsea.
Prime years fly fading with each young heart's beat

Orion, won't you make me a star sign
Orion, get up on the sky-line
I'm high on your love and I feel fine
Orion, let's sip the heaven's heady wine

And young girls shiver as they wait by lonely bus-stops
after sad parties: no-one to take them home
to greasy bed-sitters and make a late-night play
for lost virginity a thousand miles away.

Lyrics by Ian Anderson

[pmbryant]

16. So many good ones to choose from

Orion is way up there. So is the Big Dipper (Ursa Major) of course. But some more obscure ones that I've always been drawn to are Hercules, Ophiuchus, Sagittarius (the Teapot!), Scorpius, Cygnus, Perseus, Piscis Australis, Crater, Corvus, and more.

So I voted 'other'.

:bounce:

(Can you tell I've been stargazing since I was a little kid? ;-) )

Peter

[TOhioLiberal]

17. taurus

That my sign...

[FDRrocks]

18. One of the dippers...

I'm pretty low brow about the stars. Theres so much ambient lighting around I can only see them about once a week anyways. So I can only find the dipper with the really bright star in the handle. I hope to god its the big dipper cause man is it big. Almost everytime I see it, it's sitting right off my front porch. I stand there and stare at it until I get vertigo and feel like falling down.

I'm sure your life feels more complete having read that... :)

/talk

[bubblesby2002]

19. It may be banal but Orion has always been my fave

I can see it out my den window on a nice clear night.

[Mr. McD]

21. Cassiopeia

Cassiopeia was the wife of Cepheus, the Ethiopian king of Joppa (now known as Jaffa, in Israel), and the mother of Andromeda. The queen was both beautiful and vain, and the story of how her vanity caused great distress is told in relation to the constellation Andromeda.

After promising her daughter in marriage to Perseus, Cassiopeia had second thoughts. She convinced one of Poseidon's sons, Agenor, to disrupt the ceremony by claiming Andromeda for himself. Agenor arrived with an entire army, and a fierce struggle ensued.

In the battle Cassiopeia is said to have cried "Perseus must die". At any rate it was Perseus who was victorious, with the help of the Gorgon's head.

Perseus had recently slain Medusa, the Gorgon, and had put its head in a bed of coral. He retrieved the head and waved it in midst of the warring wedding party, instantly turning them all to stone. In the group was both Cepheus and Cassiopeia.

A contrite Poseidon put both father and mother in the heavens. But because of Cassiopeia's vanity, he placed her in a chair which revolves around the Pole Star, so half the time she's obliged to sit upside down.

[KittyWampus]

22. Leo

Easy to spot with the sickle formation making the head of the lion.

[hippiechick]

32. Ditto

I happen to be a Leo, BTW .... :)

Its really just cool to be able to identify any of them, and wonder what the ancients were thinking when they looked up at those masterpieces in the sky, so long ago.

:hippie:

[CrownPrinceBandar]

25. Gemini..........

[grannylib]

26. Ursa Major and Orion. Would LOVE to see the Southern Cross...

[ForrestGump]

27. A classic

[woofless]

28. Taurus

May baby.

[TN al]

29. The little dipper, ursa minor...

... because it is a bear and because one of its components is polaris, the north star.

[blindpig]

30. sirius major

cause that's where my dogs came from. Also the home of some computer company..................

[mvd]

33. Orion

For two reasons:

1) I love the fall, and it starts coming out in the fall

2) The way the three stars go together, it looks like a wise entity in the sky to me.