Follow the Yellow Brick Road

By Aaron B. Clevenson, ALCor

“You know Orion always comes up sideways.
Throwing a leg up over our fence of mountains,
And rising on his hands, he looks in on me....”
- Robert Frost


This month, is the 19th article in our Astronomical League Club certification series, the Constellation Hunter Certifications. Constellations have been with us for as long as man has been gazing at the sky in wonder. They are useful to help us remember patterns in the stars and make astronomy a little more colorful. Some people see star patterns, some people see actually images, but most people see stick figures, the ones shown on star charts and atlases, Mine are drawn in yellow, and form a yellow brick road to follow through the sky. Sort of a connect-the-dots drawing.

No one knows when the first constellations were defined and passed on from generation to generation. Many of the constellations we use today date back to the Babylonians, some from the Greeks, some from the Egyptians, and some from as late as the mid-1700’s.

There are two certificates; one for Northern Skies and one for Southern Skies. The requirements are simple enough; you sketch everything that you can see with your naked eyes within the official boundaries of every constellation in your hemisphere. That’s it! What a great way to learn your way around the heavens. Go for it! Follow the Yellow Brick Road

Next month we bring this series of articles to a close (unless the AL creates any new certifications before then…). Join us for a look at what you give someone who has everything (or at least 10 certifications from the AL), the Master Observer Program.