How to Find Star Constellations

Purchase star charts and star maps. Study them and learn the different constellations that are visible from your latitude. Familiarize yourself with their different shapes so that when you go outside in the evening you will be able to pick them out in the sky. Learn how to use a star chart, which in essence is a road map to the heavens. Remember that when you have a star chart flat in front of you, the directions of east and west are backward. When you hold it overhead with north on the map lined up with where north is in relation to you, east and west are where they belong.

Find some constellations by their easy-to-identify shapes. Pegasus the Winged Horse has what astronomers refer to as the ̶0;Great Square̶1; within its boundaries, four stars in the autumn sky you will quickly recognize as that shape. Cepheus the King looks like a child̵7;s drawing of a house, a square with a triangular roof on its top. Nearby is Cassiopeia the Queen, a constellation that looks like the letter ̶0;W̶1; or ̶0;M.̶1; Perseus, the constellation representing a Greek hero, has the shape of a ̶0;K.̶1; Once you find these constellations, you can look on your maps and charts to find others in their vicinity.

Find the Big Dipper in the northern sky. It is a section of a larger constellation known as Ursa Major. Seven stars of about the same magnitude, or brightness, form what looks like a ladle or a spoon used to procure water from a bucket. It has a handle of three stars and a bowl made up of four.

Use the Big Dipper to locate other constellations. Since it is so recognizable, it becomes like a huge road sign pointing to different star groupings. Follow the two stars at the end of the bowl upward to the first bright star, which is Polaris (the North Star) in Ursa Major, known as the Little Dipper. Make a curved line that follows the stars outward from the handle until you come to the very bright Arcturus, a star in Bootes the Herdsman. Follow a line through the stars at the back of the bowl and you come to Regulus, the brightest star in Leo the Lion.

Find Orion in the winter sky. Face south and you will immediately focus on a large upright rectangle of bright stars with three diagonal stars close to each other in a row in its middle. This is Orion the Hunter, and you can use it as you did the Big Dipper to find other constellations.

Follow a line downward through the three diagonal stars, known as ̶0;Orion̵7;s belt,̶1; until you come to the brilliant Sirius (the brightest star in the night sky) in Canis Major, the Large Dog. Follow the belt in the other direction and you will soon arrive at the aforementioned Taurus, the ̶0;V̶1; shaped constellation. Look at the bright star in the lower right corner of Orion and then the bright one in the upper left corner. These are Rigel and Betelgeuse, respectively, and a line drawn upward through them brings you to Gemini the Twins.