The Star Patterns of the Sky

The constellations are the named patterns into which the stars are grouped. Modern astronomy recognises eighty-eight, with boundaries fixed by the International Astronomical Union in the 1920s, dividing the whole sky between them; the classical set of forty-eight comes from Ptolemy's Almagest, and other cultures divided the sky in their own ways.

Each constellation carries a name and, usually, a myth explaining the figure it depicts, Orion the hunter, the Great Bear, the hero Perseus and the monster Cetus. The twelve zodiacal constellations are those the Sun's path crosses, and are the source of the names of the astrological signs, though signs and constellations no longer coincide.