What is your favorite constellation?

what is your favorite constellation and the story behind it? why is it your favorite?

thank you :)What is your favorite constellation?I like Orion, for his awesome belt with that cool nebula, I like scorpio for its visibility, and Gemini, cause Im one =PWhat is your favorite constellation?
Orion. The kids can relate easiest to him. His story includes jealousy, love, trickery, and a hunting accident (his). His outline in the sky is easy to describe. I talk about belt stars, the sword dangling below it. His shoulders are plain to imagine. But the clincher is Betelgeuse, "the Armpit of the Holy One." You can imagine what a bunch of grade-schoolers think about that one. Orion is just a fun constellation to talk about to any grade. And it is a logical one to start off the journey around the sky.What is your favorite constellation?Well of course my astrological sign "Leo" is my favorite constellation.In Greek mythology, it was identified as the Nemean Lion (and may have been a source of the tale) which was killed by Hercules during one of his twelve labours, and subsequently put into the sky. Hercules' first labor was to kill the Nemean lion, a fierce beast who descended to Earth from the Moon in the form of a meteor and ravaged the countryside of Corinth. The lion had hide so tough that neither spear nor arrow nor any other weapon could pierce it. So well known was the beast that Hercules had no trouble finding its lair, a cave with two entrances. As Hercules approached, the lion showed itself and Hercules sped an arrow toward its heart. The arrow merely bounced off and fell to the ground. Hercules now knew that arrows or spears were useless against the beast. He then sealed off one of the entrances to the cave and pursued the lion inside through the other entrance. So great was his strength that Hercules seized the lion and strangled it to death by ramming his fist down its throat. He then flung it over his shoulder and returned to show King Eurystheus that he had fulfilled his first labor. The cowardly king was terrified at the sight of the beast and fled. Hercules then skinned the lion and used its tough hide as a protective shield.But the story was not ended there,Around 240 B.C., Leo was robbed of his splendid tail. The astronomer-priest under Ptolemy III chopped of the tail of Leo when they invented the new constellation Coma Berenices (Berenice's Hair).

Not only me who favored the Leo but also the Egyptians worshipped lion-gods which is evidence of the importance this beast held in Egyptian life. The Egyptians believed that the world was created at a time when the Sun rose in Leo near the star Denebola.
My fav is Cygnus, The Swan. The stories behind the constellation are varied. One story tells us that Cygnus represents Orpheus who was changed into a swan at his death and placed beside his magic harp (Lyra) in the sky. Another story says this represents Cygnus, son of the King of the Ligurians who was stricken with grief over the death of his friend Phaethon. Touched by this, Apollo took pity on him, changed him into a swan and placed him among the stars.



Alpha Cygni, Deneb is a blue-white supergiant class A2 star. It is about 1600 light years distant. If Deneb was as close to us as the nearest star, Proxima Centauri (4.4 light years) Deneb would be as bright as the full moon in our sky! Deneb is more than 70,000 times brighter than the Sun and is estimated to be 25 times more massive. Deneb is high in the northern sky in early August



The star I find most appealing, however, is Beta Cygni, Albireo. It is a yellow class K3 star about 410 light years distant. It surely must be one of the most beautiful double stars in the sky. The companion is a blue class B8 star. Viewed through my telescope, I see them as bright yellow and emerald green. Startlingly, magnificent!



HTH



CharlesWhat is your favorite constellation?Ursa Major - well actually the asterism that is part of Ursa Major - the Big Dipper (or Plough, pronounced Plow - because I am British).



Why? - because I can always see it at night, which is very comforting (I have always lived north of 30deg N, so it has always been circumpolar, which means it does not rise or set, it just goes around and around in the sky)



And because it helps us to find the Pole Star - which can be remarkable useful.



And because I got into astronomy before I went to school (~age 3 or 4) and it is probably the first constellation you learn.What is your favorite constellation?
In the winter, Orion. Mainly because it was the first constellation (besides the Big Dipper asterism in Ursa Major) that I recognized on my own in the night sky.

Plus, even in downtown Toronto I can see it at night.



In the summer, it would have to be Virgo, mainly because it has so many galaxies in it.
Ursa major.

The seven are the exalted sages (seers) of Hindu mythology. Alcor %26amp; Mizar(Zeta Ursa majoris) are a couple Arundhati (Alcor) and her husband Vasistha (Mizar) one of the seven. The star-pair is shown to every marrying couple as an ideal to emulate. But where are the others' wives? Aren't they by the side of their husbands?

There is a story of how Shiva's son was born to slay demon king Taaraka who captured the kingdom of heaven and drove away the gods who were unable to defeat him.

As per the Hindu myth, God Shiva after his wife's tragic death renounces the world and retires to a snowy mountain (Mount Kailas in Tibet) for penance. Creator Brahma (one of the trinity along with Shiva), tells them that only son of Shiva will be able to defeat Taaraka and that Shiva should marry Parvati ('daughter of mountain king'). He was not interested in marrying again. She is longing for Shiva to marry him and remains where he is doing his penance, serving him. Gods, impatient with slow pace of this romance bring in two gods 'Manmatha' (mind churner;or 'Cupid' of flowery arrows)and Vasanta (season of Spring). They work their magic and Shiva loses his mental concentration and opens his eyes and sees beautiful Parvati and falls in love. Then he realises that he was distracted by Cupid. In his anger he opens his third eye on the forehead and gazes at Manmatha who is burnt to ashes. His wife Rathi ('act of lovemaking') wails and begs Shiva to restore her husband. Shiva couldn't, however he recreates as a 'thought-being' that can show up in her imagination. Love and love-making are more of thought-processes! Later Shiva marries Parvati. But gods were impatient. They want the couple to produce their saviour. But their love was too eleborate. One day they send one of them, 'Agni' (Beta Tauri) the fire to spy on the couple. He turns into a pigeon and takes a perch on a high window to peep down from. What he saw was Shiva on top of parvati on nuptial bed. Parvati who was looking up (being below him) quickly moves away embarassed. Shiva looks at the pigeon and brings it down and back to the shape of Agni and puts a simple question 'Now that the act of love is culminating, this semen was about to reach her womb but you disturbed it. Now the semen may spurt out any moment. it should not go waste; what do I do now?' Agni was shivering for his guilt and Shiva's anger. Shiva opened Agni's mouth and poured his semen in it. Agni couldn't bear that burning mass and ran all over heaven and sky begging some chaste women to accept his mouth's contents. Six of the seven wives of the exalted sages took pity and as a common good that will bring good times, they bore it. These six are the 'Pleiades' ('Krittika', the bunch). Only sage Vasistha's wife Arundhati ('Alcor' in Ursa major) who remains by her husband's side always was not in the group. The other six accept it into their wombs and in due course produce six faces and parts of body that after deliveries merge into one with six faces. He is known as 'Shan mukha' (six faced) whom the Tamils worship a lot. Being born to 'Krittika' (3rd of the 27 asterisms of Zodiac) he is also called 'Kartikeya'. They built a big temple to him in the caves of Malaysia.What is your favorite constellation?
I don't have just one. Orion was the first one I was able to recognize, and when I got my first telescope, the first non-planet I looked at through it was M42, so from a nostalgic standpoint, I like Orion.



A few summers back, I got on this "Globular Cluster Hunting Kick" and became fairly familiar with part of the sky I had ignored for quite sometime. This got me to appreciate constellations such as Ophiuchus, Hercules,

Canes Venatici.



Last summer, while trying to document visual magnitudes of variable stars (not an easy task form the suburbs), I enjoyed learning more about Perseus and Cetus. Perseus was even more exciting when I said to myself, "that smudge wasn't there last week," and, as I later realized, I was witnessing Comet Holmes, an object that very unexpectedly burst into naked eye visibility.





I suppose, if I ever get a chance to explore the southern constellations, this list will grow even more.


Crux, or the Southern Cross, was the first I was taught to recognise (pretty standard for all Australian kids!) and is still my favourite. But as a general rule, I'm not a huge fan of constellations - they're very subjective, after all! I tend to like individual stars - I really like Alpha Centauri!
my favorite constellation is the ursa minor because even if this are not very popular ...this constellation show simplicity for me so like me im simple
The ones that look like hamburgers and fries because I am very hungry right now.