What's Your Favorite Constellation?

I think I have to agree with your choices. First, I live in the Northern hemisphere and second, the best viewing is usually in the Fall/Winter where the skies are more likely to be clear.

Orion is probably the first one I recognize or catches my eye, followed by Leo.

One thing that really strikes me is when I get to a really, really, dark site it is almost impossible to recognize any constellations amongs the vast number of visible stars. ;-)

Yup, I'd go with Casseopeia and my mate Orion. I recently learnt how to recognise Draco - the square/diamond of the dragon's head outlining the position of the rotation North Pole some 10,000 years ago < ER waits for Jorrie to correct the inaccuracies!> due to the phenomenon of precession.

How do you recognize Draco? I seem to remember it being a long constellation with dim stars, is that right? What's your trick for finding it?

My two favourites are Orion and Sagittarius. Orion, I think, is fairly recognizable to most people and is easy to spot in the northern hemisphere either early morning autum or throughout the night in winter. Look for the three stars in a row that form the mighty hunters belt. Some of the best views of nebulae (the famous "Horsehead")can be seen in the dagger that hangs from Orion's belt.

Perhaps not so well known (at least to point out in the sky) is Sagittarius. This is a summer treat for the northern hemisphere, looking into Sagittarius is looking towards the heart of the Milky Way. Look for the teapot, on a very dark, clear night, the "steam" comming from the spout is where an abundance of clusters and nebulae can be found. Where I live, Sagittarius is quite low on the horizon, partially blocked by a large tree and lies in the direction of the bright lights of Niagara Falls. In spite of this, I managed some beautiful views of the laggoon, swan and triffid nebulas this past summer.

I should have mentioned the planisphere. For a newcomer to stargazing, a star finder chart or planisphere is invaluable. It takes very little to learn to use it correctly and you will quickly begin to memorize the night sky.

I recently bought a new one at a store two hours drive from my home, imagine my chagrin when I got home and discovered it was a southern hemisphere edition. I never thought to check at the store, it never occured to me that an astronomy supply store in Toronto would be selling planispheres for use in Santiago!

128QAM IQ constellation...what a kick!

The USS Costellation is nice, but can only be seen from the Baltimore waterfront.

Orion, definitely.

BTW, Orion and The Pleides are both mentioned by name in one of King David's psalms found in the Old Testament. Specifically, in Psalm 16:7,8. Of course, the ancient Hebrew names were used for these two constellations, and I don't happen to know at the moment what these names were in the original language.

But we do know, at least from the Biblical Record, that at least two familiar constellations known to us today were also known as such way back then. David, Israel's second king (Saul being the first), was King of Israel between the years 1005 BC and 965 BC, more or less. His reign predates the Babylonian, Persian, Medien, Assyrian, and, of course, the Greek Empires by quite a number of years.

--Europium

Correction. Job 9:9 - "Which maketh Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades, and the chambers of the south."

The Book of Job predates King David's reign by a considerable number of years, although the exact date the book was written is somewhat controversial. In spite of the controversy, however, historians tend to agree that the Book of Job is very, very ancient and is, by far, the oldest text in the Old Testament (which is not organized chronologically, BTW).

--Europium

Interesting as well is the list of things in Job and 'why' God made them, after which you notice one thing that stands out like a BUMP. The stars and constellations were supposedly created and placed precisely as a sign, to tell a story.

Your original post hinted at the question I had years ago...about the 'original' meanings and names for the constellations.

You wouldn't believe how amazed I was at the thousands-of-year's-old research that documented nearly EVERY civilization ever discovered, even back then - and continued now with 'new world' translations in Mexico and South America - had the equivalent names for all of the major ones.

It is 'modern' astrology that gets it's names from the Babylonians and later Greeks, who were very creative and simply 'twisted' some of the historic names to bend the story a bit from the original names. They ended up with an attempted kind of ancient rewriting-of-history to tell their many-gods mythology, and come up with some cool stories to entertain and explain the world - without having to know or admit the existence of a 'single' God to whom they should be accountable, apparently.

The ancient pre-Jews, by the way, seem to have considered the entire sky to be a display of God's knowledge (way back at creation, whether he planned a Big Bang or a mass release of quantum Strings or twists of the aether, whatever...) that Adam& Eve would screw up and God himself would have to send a Messiah; obviously long before humans were actually created and placed here and 'allowed free will to make the wrong choice'...on the only planet that would see those constellations as-intended. This would be implied by the coherence of their story line with every single ancient name of the constellations, in every language. Only the later changes by the Babylonians and others rendered the names differently than would be correct to tell the garden-through-Messiah story.

Oh, and this common naming of the star groupings is despite the fact that none of the constellations actually 'look like' what they are named...which blew me away, and points directly at some way-early common language and society on earth. Must have been before we all split up and developed different cultures over the years, eh? Tower of Babel, anyone? Noah's ark? (oh, and all the old cultures had a flood or mass destruction legend too...)

Interesting, anyway...I like to orient the sky for myself with the big dipper first (tail of Ursa Major), then follow the angle down to Orion's belt if winter or look 'up' to Gemma in the Corona Borealis (crown), which leads you over to the quad stars of Hercules. Oh, and in the spring the "pointing stars" that give you Polaris can be followed the 'other' way to find Leo.
Also, right at mid-summer I always remember that just above the horizon, Sagittarius is just south of due west, and Scorpius is just north of it.