1. What is constellation? In modern astronomy, a constellation is an internationally defined area of the celestial sphere.

These areas are grouped aroundasterisms (which themselves are generally referred to in non-technical language as "constellations"), which are patterns formed by prominent stars within apparent proximity to one another on Earth's night sky. 2. 5 examples of constellation in north sky Cassiopeia, the queen Andromeda, the princess Draco, the dragon Orion, the hunter Ursa Minor, the little bear 3. 5 examples of constellation in south sky Apus, the bird of paradise Centauras, the centaur Hydrus, the water snake Phoenix, the phoenix Vela, the ship's sails 4. Ancient Babylonians charted the stars that were visible to the naked eye. The Greeks recorded lists of the star formations, Ptolemy in particular. A sky map was developed dividing the sections of the sky and naming constellations. Benjamin Gould was credited for this in 1895 and Eugene Delporte in 1930. Anyone of the 88 groupings of stars that appear in the celestial sphere & which they take his name from religious or mithologicals figures, animals or objects. This term also talks about delimited areas of the celestial sphere that understand the star groups with an certain name. The Greeks recognized & named forty-eight constellations. Many of these constellations were also recognized by the Arabs, Egyptians, & the Babylonian. In 1928, the International Astronomy Union fixed the boundaries of the eighty-eight constellations in the sky. Twelve constellations lie on the ecliptic & are known as "the Zodiacs." Part of Ophiuchus lies on the ecliptic, so that makes thirteen ecliptic constellations. Twenty-nine constellations are between the ecliptic & the North Celestial Pole plus the remainder of Ophiuchus. Forty-seven constellations lie between the ecliptic zone & the South Celestial Pole. The names of the constellations are given in Latin, because Latin was once the language of learning. The names used by the Greeks, Egyptians, & other people were translated into Latin. For convenience, the ancients named the constellations after a certain figure that it seemed to form in the sky. They refer to mythological or legendary men, women, & animals. For thousands of years, people have used their knowledge of the constellations to guide them from place to place.

The stars have been studied since the beginning of man. "The earliest known efforts to catalog the stars dates back to cuneiform texts and artifacts from 6000 years ago." Most of our current constellations we can attribute to Roman, Greek, and Babylonian mythology. Around the 7th century B.C., in the time of Homer, the stars were thought to replicate animals. By the 5th century B.C. most of the constellations began to be associated with myths. Mythology, of course, influenced the naming of many objects in the night sky, not just the constellations. Planets and moons bear names from mythology.