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IAU Status

This page groups constellations by whether each one holds official recognition from the International Astronomical Union. Wikipedia notes that "in 1922, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) formally accepted the modern list of 88 constellations, and in 1928 adopted official constellation boundaries that together cover the entire celestial sphere." Browsing by iau-status lets a visitor tell an officially recognized constellation from an older or unofficial one.

Facts

Origins

Place of Origin

Mesopotamian star lore, transmitted through Greek astronomy; the southern-sky figures were added by European observers from the late sixteenth century 3

Whose Classification This Is

The International Astronomical Union: 88 constellations agreed in 1922, with boundaries drawn by Eugène Delporte, adopted in 1928 and published in 1930. 2

Overview

What Defines This Grouping

Star patterns and the sky regions that now carry their names. Distinct from the twelve zodiac signs, which borrowed constellation names but are equal thirty-degree arcs of the ecliptic and no longer coincide with them. 1

Size of the Traditional Set

88 constellations 2

Structure

Eighty-eight regions covering the whole celestial sphere without gap or overlap, bounded along lines of right ascension and declination for the epoch B1875.0. 2

Learn More

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.

Myth, sky and sign

The constellations belong to astronomy and to the mythologies that named them, and this category treats them as star patterns and as bearers of myth, distinct from the astrological signs that borrowed their names. Many cultures (Chinese, Indian, Mesopotamian, Polynesian and others), mapped the sky differently, and the Western forty-eight are one scheme among several.

The atlas gives each constellation its figure, its principal stars, and the myth or lore attached to it. The individual named stars within them are treated in the star category, and the zodiacal signs, which share their names, under the sign category.

IAU Status