Constellation to find
Draw one of the 88 official constellations with what its name means.
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Press "Generate Constellation" to see a result here.
Region of sky
Press Generate and one of the 88 official constellations comes up with what its name means. The list is the complete set fixed by the International Astronomical Union in 1922, not a selection of the famous ones.
This is the part most people are surprised by. Since 1922 the constellations have been defined as areas of sky with precise boundaries, covering the whole celestial sphere between them. Every star, galaxy and comet is in exactly one constellation, whether or not it forms part of any recognisable pattern. The pictures came first; the map came afterwards.
The northern constellations carry ancient names - the hunter, the swan, the great bear - because they were named by cultures who could see them for thousands of years. Much of the southern sky was only charted by European astronomers in the 1700s, and they named what they found after the tools of their trade: the microscope, the telescope, the air pump, the compasses, the chisel. It is a rough guide to when a region was mapped.
The twelve zodiac constellations are the ones the Sun appears to pass in front of during the year. Astronomically nothing distinguishes them from any other constellation, and the Sun actually passes through a thirteenth - Ophiuchus - which was left out when the zodiac was fixed at twelve equal signs long before the boundaries were formalised.
The list is filtered to the group you chose, then a constellation is drawn using your browser's cryptographic random source with rejection sampling, so nothing is favoured. Batches without repeats use a Fisher-Yates shuffle driven by the same source.
88, fixed by the International Astronomical Union in 1922. Every point in the sky belongs to exactly one of them, so they are regions rather than just patterns of stars.
Yes. The filter separates northern, southern and the twelve zodiac constellations.
Only in that the Sun passes through them from our point of view. Astronomically they are ordinary constellations, and the Sun also passes through Ophiuchus, which is not counted as one of the twelve.
Because the southern sky was mapped much later, mostly in the 1700s, and the astronomers of the time named regions after scientific instruments rather than myths.
Yes. Set the quantity and press once, then Copy All to take the list with meanings included.
Yes. Each constellation is drawn with your browser's cryptographic random source, so every one in the chosen group has an equal chance.