The night sky is full of bright as well as faint heavenly bodies
Stars and constellations and planets
If we see the sky with a pair of binoculars, we see thousands and thousands of these objects. And, of course, with powerful telescopes we see many millions of them. The stars are like our sun, most of them being larger than it!
Constellations
To the ancient people, the stars which seemed to travel across the night sky were a mystery. In them, they saw pictures of their gods, heroes, mythological animals and objects. They saw stars as related groups and called them constellations. In fact, what they saw were stars, millions of bright gems far apart from one another but looking likes a group because of the distance from the earth. Thus they named one such group or constellation the great bear as they could imagine in it a big bear going round and round the pole star, the only star which did not appear to travel across the sky as others did.
In India, the great bear can hot always be seen above the horizon in the evening during the different seasons. But, during a night, it is seen at some or the other hour.
Opposite the great bear is the constellation of Cassiopeia’s Chair, which looks like a W or M according to its position in the sky. When the great bear is not seen, you can see Cassiopeia’s Chair.
A smaller constellation, the little bear can always be seen-it looks like the great bear but is small and its tail star is the pole star. Other notable constellations are Orion, Scorpio, Leo, Taurus, Cygnus, Peruses and Pegasus.
When you look at the pole star, you are looking north- and thus from this you can find out the other directions. Similarly, you know where the east is when you see the sun rise.
By knowing the height of the pole star, you can find out the latitude of your place.
Planets
In the night sky, you can see several planets too. During the passage of the night, you can see five of them- Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.
The others are too far away to be seen with the naked eye. However, which of the planets will be visible to you at a particular time during the season or month of the year; can be found out from a monthly star chart as the papers give or from an almanac or Jantri.
Thus you see that by observing the sun, moon, stars and constellations you can gather much information.
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