Hi Erik, I guess my thought was that constellations are just chance patterns, only showing up because of our particular orientation at this time. In 1,000 years there will be some changes; in 1 million, there will be new constellations. Are they amazing no matter when seen or what they look like? That's giving too much credit to random distributions of stars that our brains have a propensity to draw lines between. We tend to connect the dots. When I was talking about amazing objects, I meant things that are amazing to examine in a telescope, like nebulae or galaxies or, ... you get the picture. Thanks, Joe --- On Thu, 3/3/11, erikhansen@thebluezone.net <erikhansen@thebluezone.net> wrote:
From: erikhansen@thebluezone.net <erikhansen@thebluezone.net> Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] End of the Planisphere? To: "Utah Astronomy" <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Date: Thursday, March 3, 2011, 2:51 PM
The constellations are amazing objects.
On 2/28/11, Joe Bauman <josephmbauman@yahoo.com> wrote:
Personally, I'm more interested in seeing (and photographing) amazing objects in space than I am in memorizing constellations. If we lived in another part of the galaxy I'd still be interested in examining the same classes of objects but the constellations would be far different. Do beings on every inhabited planet have to bother memorizing the designs just because their ancestors did?
That is unknown, but beings on this planet seem to do EVERYTHING just because their ancestors did.
Joe, it's just not hard. I learned the constellations when I was ten years old. They are the backdrop to everything else in the sky. The sky is actually a huge clock that tells you a lot of information at a glance, if you have done a bit of studying beforehand. Even kids with developmental or learning disabilities can learn the sky.
Learning the constellations does not preclude seeing and imaging amazing objects in space. It enhances it.
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