Which constellation is it?
Every segment of the wheel is a small star chart: the stars of one constellation, joined into its figure, with the fainter stars around it. Press SPIN! and pick the constellation from four names:
The charts show the sky the way you see it: north at the top and east on the left – the opposite of a map of the Earth, because you look at the sky from below. Bigger dots are brighter stars.
Your score
Score, In a row and Best run are kept beside the wheel. Start again puts the score back to zero:
Three parts of the sky
The twelve constellations of the zodiac are on the wheel when it opens. Add the northern sky, with the Great Bear and Cassiopeia, and the southern sky, with Orion and the Southern Cross:
Shapes to start with
- Ursa Major – the seven bright stars of the Plough, or the Big Dipper, are its back and tail.
- Cassiopeia – a W, or an M, high in the northern sky all year round.
- Orion – three stars in a row for the belt, between two bright shoulders and two knees.
- Cygnus – a long cross, the swan flying down the Milky Way.
- Crux – the Southern Cross, the smallest of all 88 constellations.
- Scorpius – a long curving tail with the red star Antares at the heart.
Where the stars come from
The star positions and the figures are from d3-celestial, an open source star map built on the Hipparcos star catalogue. The lines are one common way of joining the stars; star books do not all draw them alike.
How to learn them
- Start with one group.
- Open Options and tick Take the ones I got right off the wheel.
- Spin until the wheel is empty – what is left at the end is what you do not know yet.
- Then go out on a clear night and find the first group in the real sky.