Stars are the first things that attract a\nchild\u2019s interest in the night skies. For many, even for experienced\nastronomers, the starry night skies remain a source of wonder and a thing of\nbeauty. Knowing the constellations, from\nthe most magnificent to the smallest, enhances all aspects of our experiences\nof the night sky. I spend some time every observing session just standing and\nlooking up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Constellations have deep cultural\nimportance. They are beautiful in their own right, and naked-eye astronomy is\navailable to everyone who can see the stars. \nMany constellations also hold some of the earliest stories of Western\ncivilisation: the Greek, and even pre-Greek, myths. Other cultures placed their own stories into\nthe skies, and learning our culture\u2019s constellations can lead to learning the\nconstellations and stories of others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At a practical level, constellations are\nthe cities of the stars; knowing them and their arrangements gives us a roadmap\nto the skies, helping us locate individual stars and other sights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And let\u2019s not forget that people who are\ninterested in and appreciate the beauty of the stars are more likely to be\nactive in preserving dark skies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the Sky School, I hope you will learn to\nidentify the major constellations, and learn some of their stories and\nmyths. I use the figures developed by\nH.A.Rey, which are the only figures I’ve ever seen that make the constellations\nlook like what they are supposed to look like. \nI use his book The Stars – A New Way of Seeing .<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Along with this site, I have developed the\nConstellation Challenge series. If you participate in this, you will, as with\nthe other lists we seem to love almost as much as our telescopes, check off\nconstellations as you see them. Whether you see constellations as the\ntraditional \u201cconnect the dots\u201d figures, the \u201cstick figures\u201d of H. A. Rey, or\nsome other method, try to see all the major stars making the shape of the constellation. On the lists, I\u2019ve suggested numbers of stars\nin each constellation; it\u2019s just a suggestion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I hope this site and the Constellation\nChallenge series bring enjoyment to sky-lovers, and make new sky-lovers, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Stars are the first things that attract a child\u2019s interest in the night skies. For many, even for experienced astronomers, the starry night skies remain a source of wonder and a thing of beauty. Knowing the constellations, from the most magnificent to the smallest, enhances all aspects of our experiences of the night sky. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-7","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pixsilver.com\/Sky_School\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pixsilver.com\/Sky_School\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pixsilver.com\/Sky_School\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pixsilver.com\/Sky_School\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pixsilver.com\/Sky_School\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pixsilver.com\/Sky_School\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56,"href":"https:\/\/pixsilver.com\/Sky_School\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7\/revisions\/56"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pixsilver.com\/Sky_School\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}