When looking at the starry sky for the very first time at dark moonless night, it can seem that there are extremely many stars on the sky, and there is no possible way to count them all. You can’t even find yourself in this universe, not speaking about anything else. But to a big surprise, you eye suddenly starts organizing some of the stars into different figures of various shapes. That's exactly what our ancestors did. By watching the constellations, stars and planets they were creating the clock and compiling the calendar. (what we use today not even thinking about it) For you to know, the first star clusters – constellations- were discovered as early as in Ancient Babylon times (though maybe even earlier).
On a clear night sky with unaided eye you can see about 6000 stars at a time. All stars are devided between 88 constellations. At ancient times the word "constellation" was associated with any star figure, which was created by people and later on personified into real character. Today the sky is devided into sections with distinct boundaries.
The most ancient are said to be the constellations of the Zodiac zone, as a matter of fact many of them have "animal" names such as Aries, Taurus, Leo, Capricorn, etc. By the way, the word "Zodiac", translated from ancient Greek, means "animal circle". Ancient Greece opened to this world a huge atronomical body. For better understanding and remembering names of constellations there were many poetic myths written about them.
Nowadays when we take
binoculars and look at the sky, we don't even think or maybe don't know these stories. But for me it’s very interesting to read and learn more. Though we will never be able to learn everything, all the secrets and mysteries of this wonderful world, but at least we can see our part and imagine the rest.
xxX Enjoy the sky as always! Xxx