In Carl Sagan’s Contact, SETI detects an intelligent signal coming from the star Vega in the constellation Lyra. In The Invincible by Stanislaw Lem, the crew of the eponymous spaceship lands on the planet Regis III, in the constellation Auriga, and finds the ruins of an ancient Lyran civilization (apparently Lyrans are super-advanced, or at least very popular). And in The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu, the invaders come from the constellation Centaurus.
Constellations are not only the beautiful tapestry of the sky and the source of awe and inspiration for many stories and myths, they are essentially celestial landmarks. Whether it is a super intelligent civilization in a science fiction story or a scientific observation, the constellations are our reference points in the sky. For example, the planets move very close to the ecliptic, so the constellations not only give you your horoscope, but can help you find our traveling companions.
Constellations (Princeton University Press, 2012) by Govert Schilling is a beautiful atlas of the 88 modern constellations, including their history, mythology, the stars that make them up, and a list of the scientific discoveries found in them. The beautiful pictures and artwork, along with the myths and Arabic and Latin names, make it a great bedtime story.
I believe that books expand us. This time I decided to expand this book as well. Reading it inspired me to create a small project, basically a remote control for Stellarium, one of my favorite open source projects.
Check out the repository and a video of the project in action.
