The UK-China Leonid Meteor Shower Observation Project

5. Are constellations real?

We can tell how far away things are on earth because we can judge distant objects by comparing them with similar objects close to. When we look at the stars, there are no landmarks, so we can't judge distances. You can make a model of a constellation to prove this.

Draw a line on a piece of paper, and above the line, draw a pattern of dots at different heights above the line. Measure the heights and cut wooden sticks or paper straws of the same lengths. Make balls from lumps of modelling clay [or similar], and stick them to the sticks or straws. Put your eye level with the top of the table, and hold your paper design upright. Get a friend to help you position your "stars" on the table, some close to you, some farther away, until you get the pattern you see on your design. Hold them in position with more modelling clay. When finished, stand up, and see if your constellation looks the same from the top and the side as it does from the front. You could try and make a model of the Plough.

Consider the constellation of the Plough, for a moment. It looks something like this, if we join the stars together.

We can make a model that looks just like the Plough, using the ideas suggested above. It can be done by the arrangement shown. But only from the particular position we are viewing from.

If we take the connecting lines away, the idea of the Plough is lost, and we can see that the "stars" are not in the positions we might have expected. Look at the model from a different position and you will see the pattern is very different.

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