How constellations have been named after persons, animals, and things?

Please anawer.. And please discuss how zodiac signs are related to the constellations.. Thanks!How constellations have been named after persons, animals, and things?The more conspicuous constellations have names that have come down from the ancients, going back to at least the Babylonians. Traditional western astronomy was codified by the Greek astronomer Claudius Ptolemy, who listed 48 constellations in the second century. In later years, more constellations were added to fill in the southern hemisphere skies and some of the regions where there were no bright stars. In addition, some stellar cartographers created new constellations to honor various personages, and sometimes even attempted to rename existing constellations. The current list of 88 constellations was agreed to by the International Astronomical Union in the 1930s, and divides the entire sky.



The twelve signs of the zodiac roughly corresponded to the twelve zodiacal constellations whose names they shared back in the time of Ptolemy. He wrote the book on astrology as well as astronomy. Astrology is based on the seasonal position of the sun, though, not the fixed stars, so over the centuries, precession of the equinoxes has caused the alignment to drift by about 22 degrees. So most people who call themselves Aries according to astrology actually had the sun in the constellation Pisces when they were born. The modern division of the sky has also put a 13th constellation on the ecliptic (path of the sun). Part of what was once considered Scorpio is now part of Ophiuchus.How constellations have been named after persons, animals, and things?well all of them are named after constellations. The zodiac signs ARE constellations.How constellations have been named after persons, animals, and things?There are over 4,000 stars in the sky visible to the human eye without a telescope. In order to bring some order to this chaos, ancient man looked for patterns in the sky and made up stories about these patterns, and these have come down to us as constellations. In 1920, the International Astronomical Union gave these official boundaries: 88 constellations.



The Sun, Moon, and planets move along a band in the sky known as the ecliptic or zodiac. The constellations along this band have particular importance for describing the positions of the Sun, Moon, and planets. Historically there were 12 zodiac constellations, but under the IAU's constellation boundaries a thirteenth constellation was included, Ophiuchus. Although important for describing positions, a number of the zodiac constellations have few bright stars and aren't particularly notable, such as Libra and Cancer. Others are very bright an noticeable, such as Gemini and Scorpius.How constellations have been named after persons, animals, and things?
In ancient times, people watched the night sky more than they do today. And to make some sense of the random pattern of stars, they imagined that the stars formed pictures (sort of like seeing animals in the shapes of clouds on a summer day).

And since mythology was an important part of their lives, many of the constellations were named after mythological figures and their stories.



Some constellations were named after familiar objects (such as Lyra the Harp) or animals (such as Leo the Lion).



The zodiac signs are the 12 constellations that happen to lie along the "ecliptic" - the path the sun appears to take in our sky during the year.