Caption: Third place in the 2022 IAU OAE Astrophotography Contest, category Time lapses of celestial patterns.   This video tries to cover a huge variety of phenomena in the night sky from different locations — Iceland and China — and is designed like a theatre play, starring mother nature herself. It starts with a blue twilight sky that dims and unveils the starry night sky on the stage with terrestrial clouds on a beautiful landscape. The impressive parts of the southern Milky Way between Scorpius and Crux, with the pointer stars Alpha and Beta Centaurus, are shown passing by majestically. The terrestrial clouds blur the stars and allow us to recognise their colours even more clearly. The first act presents the starry sky in human culture. One scene shows the Pleiades rising over the top of a hill, while a human moves hastily with a flashlight below. At the very moment that the Pleiades rises behind the hill, the beam of the flashlight hits the camera. There is some humour in this remarkable scene referencing the human relationship to the rise of the Pleiades in cultural history. The next scene shows The Big Dipper, Ursa Major, as a typical northern constellation, with an arch of aurora below it. The aurora evolves and moves but does not change much fundamentally. In northern human cultures, aurorae were often interpreted as the ghosts of ancestors, but this play does not spend any time on human beliefs, instead moving the view southwards in the subsequent scenes. First we see some stars rising shortly before sunrise. The lightcone of Zodiacal light appears in Gemini/Taurus and the horizon gets brighter. In the next scene, at about 1 minute and 13 seconds, we see Orion setting over water, so that the water surface mirrors the celestial scene. Some clouds crossing the image prove that the videos were really taken on our beautiful planet, and, since Orion’s shoulder and foot are seen to set almost simultaneously, this sequence must have been captured almost at the equator. In this area, the bright stars of Orion look like a huge butterfly, with Orion’s Belt forming the body, and the quadrilateral of four bright stars interpreted as the wings. As in a real theatre, we now see a curtain before the next act of the heavenly play, an aurora curtain. The next act presents several bright stars in original scenes: the Chinese asterisms of The Tail (of the Azure Dragon), the Winnowing Basket and the Southern Dipper, which are seen in the modern constellations Scorpius and Sagittarius. The striking shape of Corona Borealis that has been recognised as an asterism in many cultures all over the globe, is also shown, as are some planets, the stars Vega and Deneb with adjacent areas, Altair, the Milky Way, and the characteristic W shape of Cassiopeia that has also been an asterism for many cultures on Earth. The outro presents two more scenes with a smooth and silent night sky.
Credit: Stephanie Ye Ziyi/IAU OAE

Caption: Honourable mention in the 2022 IAU OAE Astrophotography Contest, category Still images of celestial patterns.   This photograph, taken in Udupi, India, in May 2021, shows the seven brightest stars in the constellation Ursa Major. This asterism was seen as a Wagon by the Babylonians, which probably led to the alternative interpretation of the Chariot in the didactic poem of the Greek poet Aratus. The normal Greek interpretation is the constellation of the Great She-Bear, which also includes many fainter stars in a much broader area of the sky. In ancient Egypt, these seven stars form the figure of the Bull’s Foreleg or the Bull’s Thigh. It is considered a part of the leg of the god Seth, who was considered the evil one of two brothers; the god Osiris (who is sometimes considered the first king of Egypt) was murdered by his brother Seth. Their loving sister put together the scattered pieces of the corpse and reanimated him. In order to prevent Seth from further evil deeds, this leg was attached to a dowel in the sky. These seven bright stars were considered The Northern Dipper, containing the asterism of the Judges by the nobility in Ancient China. In French and in Dutch, it is called a Saucepan, in German a Chariot and in British English a Plough. The commonly known term “Big Dipper” is American English. They are considered the male figure who is the father of all stars and humans in the North American Navajo saga, where he is said to be the husband of a mother goddess seen in Cassiopeia. Similarly, it is designated the Man’s Cart in Norse mythology with the Woman’s Cart in Ursa Minor. In some other northern cultures, the group is interpreted as an Elk, for instance for the Inuits and Siberians, while the Sami see the Bow and Arrow of Favdna here. In contrast, not all cultures in the southern hemisphere named it because it is always either close to the horizon or invisible. For instance, the Brazilian Tucano people called it the Large Anus of the Snake and in Samoa it forms part of the Heirloom Warclub. The Hawaiian people also used the asterism for navigation and called it The Seven, while the Macedonian tradition interpreted it as Seven Thieves. In Italian star lore, it is either called The Seven Oxen (Rome) or The Seven Brothers (Sardinia). Similarly, the Mongolian traditions speak of Seven Buddahs while the Indians call it the Seven Sages.
Credit: Arya Anthony/IAU OAE

Caption: Winner in the 2022 IAU OAE Astrophotography Contest, category Still images of celestial patterns.   This spectacular image shows a range of prominent constellations visible in the night sky over the desert of inner Mongolia, taken in August 2019. The yellowish star in the bottom left side is Arcturus, one of the brightest stars in the night sky, and the brightest in the constellation Boötes. The handle of the Big Dipper points towards this bright star and the Dipper is also visible above Boötes. The Northern Dipper (Bei Dou) is a traditional Chinese constellation. It is considered a chariot in which the Judges for Nobility are sitting. Arcturus is considered a single-star asterism, named the Horn, which forms part of the Chinese super-constellation for the spring, the Azure Dragon of the East. The front of the Northern Dipper points towards the star at the top of the photograph which is now called Polaris, the northern Pole Star. In ancient China, there was no bright star at the pole, so the stars in the nearest vicinity of the pole were considered to belong to the emperor and his family in the constellation the Purple Forbidden Palace. At least as early as mediaeval times, Polaris was considered part of the constellation of the Great Emperor of Heaven. Corona Borealis is also visible in the top right corner of this image, although not in its completeness. It is called the Coiled Thong in China. With its characteristic semi-circular shape, this is one of the smaller constellations of the 88 modern ones, but also can be traced back at least three or four millennia through the Roman “Crown”, the Greek wedding “Wreath”, and the Babylonian “Asterism of Dignity”. The modern name literally means “Northern Crown” in Latin. At the upper-right edge of the image, we find the part of the modern constellation Cassiopeia that is considered the Flying Corridor and an Auxiliary Road in ancient China. The W-shape of Cassiopeia is cut off by the edge of the photograph but the constellations to its south and southeast, Andromeda and Perseus, are clearly recognisable. Prominently we see the Andromeda galaxy, the most distant object that is visible to the unaided eye. It is located at the outermost outliers of the band of the Milky Way, which could explain why it has not been mentioned explicitly in ancient star catalogues, as it was mistakenly thought to be part of the Milky Way. The photograph also shows clearly reddish parts of the Milky Way that don’t appear bright to the naked eye, and also open clusters that are formed from the same molecular cloud, i.e., groups of stars with similar ages. This region is part of many big and small asterisms in traditional Chinese uranology.
Credit: Likai Lin/IAU OAE

Caption: Winner in the 2022 IAU OAE Astrophotography Contest, category Still images of celestial patterns.   As Earth moves around the Sun, the positions of the stars in the night sky appear to change over the course of the year. This is well exemplified in this mosaic, with images taken in all four seasons throughout 2020 in the region of Veneto, Italy, showing the apparent motion of the Ursa Minor and Ursa Major constellations. Ursa Minor, the Little Bear, is a constellation of the northern hemisphere, and it contains the northern celestial pole, in our current epoch marked by a bright star called Polaris or the Pole Star. For centuries Polaris has been used for navigation in the northern hemisphere, as it has been almost at the exact pole position for roughly 200 years. In the Middle Ages and antiquity, there was no pole star; the celestial north pole lay in a dark region and the Greeks considered the “Little She-Bear” as a companion of the “Great She-Bear”, which is more easily recognizable. The brightest stars of these constellations were alternatively also considered as chariots by the Greeks, as written in Aratus’s famous didactic poem from the 3rd century before the common era. The most famous asterism in Ursa Major, composed of seven stars, has different names across the (northern) world. While considered as a chariot by the Greeks, it is “The Northern Dipper” in China, and “The Seven Oxen” for the ancient Romans. It was also the navigational purpose that led to the name The Great She-Bear, Ursa Major; for the Greeks, travelling towards the direction of the horizon above which Ursa Major appears meant moving towards the land of the bears (northern Europe). An animal is clearly recognizable when taking into account all the fainter stars in the vicinity of the seven bright ones. They considered it a female bear because Greek mythology connects this animal with the nymph Callisto, whose story describes the initiation rituals for women. In the top left, we see an image taken on a spring evening, while the image below shows the same portion of the sky on a summer evening. Going counterclockwise, we see the sky during autumn in the bottom right image, while the top right finally shows this portion of the sky in the winter. Note that the relative positions of Ursa Minor and the Big Dipper don’t change, but all stars appear to be moved in a circle around Polaris. This star pointing due north lies at the point where Earth’s rotational axis intersects the celestial sphere. The shift of constellations throughout the year is therefore a globe-clock or a globe-calendar, used by ancient civilizations to measure the year, and to predict the changes of seasons. It helps to establish, for instance, the best time for sowing and sailing as winds change with the seasons.
Credit: Giorgia Hofer/IAU OAE

Caption: This time-lapse documents the trajectory of the iconic Big Dipper across three frames taken in July 2020. Captured from three locations in Italy, Tre Cime di Lavaredo Auronzo di Cadore, Monte Rite, Cibiana di Cadore, and Casera Razzo, Vigo di Cadore, this visual odyssey showcases the captivating journey of the Big Dipper with the addition of trails of stars painting a celestial canvas. It not only traces the path of this renowned asterism but also features the rare appearance of comet Neowise C/2020 F3, an extraordinary event that graced our skies during July 2020.
Credit: Giorgia Hofer/IAU OAE (CC BY 4.0)

Caption: La constelación zodiacal de Virgo y las constelaciones que la rodean. Comenzando por la parte superior del diagrama y siguiendo el sentido de las agujas del reloj, son Coma Berenices, Leo, Cráter, Corvus, Libra y Bootes. La estrella más brillante de Virgo, Espiga, se encuentra justo debajo de la eclíptica (mostrada aquí como una línea azul) en el centro del mapa. Una forma de localizar esta estrella en el cielo nocturno es seguir el asa de la Osa Mayor hasta la estrella Arcturus en Bootes y seguir una línea recta hasta Espiga ("arco a Arcturus y espiga a Spica"). Esta estrella se encuentra justo debajo de la eclíptica. La eclíptica es la trayectoria que el Sol parece seguir a través del cielo en el transcurso de un año. El Sol se encuentra en Virgo desde mediados de septiembre hasta finales de octubre. Los demás planetas del Sistema Solar se encuentran a menudo en Virgo. Virgo abarca el ecuador celeste y, por tanto, parte de ella es visible en algún momento del año desde todo el planeta Tierra, con parte de la constelación oscurecida para las regiones más árticas y antárticas del mundo. Virgo es más visible por las tardes en primavera en el hemisferio norte y en otoño en el hemisferio sur. La constelación de Virgo aparece como una persona tumbada con la espalda casi pegada a la eclíptica, los brazos extendidos y los pies apuntando hacia el este. En Virgo son visibles varios objetos de cielo profundo, como NGC4697, M49, M87, M86, M84 y M60, todos ellos mostrados con elipses rojas en el mapa. Todas ellas son galaxias espirales y elípticas situadas a varios millones de años luz de la Tierra. Más notablemente, M87 alberga el agujero negro supermasivo (Pōwehi) que fue fotografiado por el Event Horizon Telescope en 2019. Todas estas galaxias son miembros del Cúmulo de Virgo, el cúmulo de galaxias más cercano a la Vía Láctea. El eje-y de este diagrama está en grados de declinación con el norte hacia arriba y el eje-x está en horas de ascensión recta con el este a la izquierda. El tamaño de las estrellas mostradas aquí está relacionado con la magnitud aparente de la estrella, una medida de su brillo aparente. Los puntos más grandes representan estrellas más brillantes. Las letras griegas indican las estrellas más brillantes de la constelación. Están ordenadas según su brillo: la estrella más brillante se denomina alfa, la segunda más brillante beta, etc., aunque este orden no siempre se sigue con exactitud. Las líneas punteadas marcan los límites de las constelaciones según la UAI y las líneas verdes continuas marcan una de las formas habituales utilizadas para representar las figuras de las constelaciones. Ni los límites de las constelaciones, ni la línea que marca la eclíptica, ni las líneas que unen las estrellas aparecen en el cielo.
Credit: Adaptado por la Oficina de Astronomía para la Educación de la UAI a partir del original de UAI/Sky & Telescope

Caption: La constelación de la Osa Mayor junto con sus estrellas brillantes y las constelaciones que la rodean. La Osa Mayor está rodeada por (en el sentido de las agujas del reloj desde arriba): Draco, Camelopardalis, Lynx, Leo Menor, Leo, Coma Berenices, Canes Venatici y Bootes. La Osa Mayor es famosa por su distintivo asterismo, a menudo conocido en inglés como Big Dipper (Osa Mayor) o Plough (Arado). Este distintivo asterismo septentrional recibe una gran variedad de nombres de culturas de todo el mundo. Mientras que la mayoría de las constelaciones y asterismos están formados por estrellas no relacionadas que aparecen juntas en el cielo de forma aleatoria, cinco de las estrellas de la Osa Mayor forman parte de la Asociación Estelar de la Osa Mayor, un grupo de estrellas que se mueven juntas por el espacio y que probablemente se formaron en el mismo lugar hace 300 millones de años. Las dos estrellas del extremo derecho de la Osa Mayor en este diagrama forman un par de estrellas puntero que pueden utilizarse para localizar a Polaris, la estrella polar del norte que se encuentra en la constelación de la Osa Menor. La Osa Mayor es una constelación boreal y es visible desde las regiones septentrionales y ecuatoriales. Algunas partes de la constelación son visibles desde todas las regiones del hemisferio sur, excepto las más antárticas, pero no todas las regiones templadas del hemisferio sur pueden ver toda la Osa Mayor. Por el contrario, la Osa Mayor y gran parte del resto de la constelación son circumpolares en las regiones árticas y en muchas regiones templadas del hemisferio norte. La Osa Mayor es más visible al atardecer en primavera en el hemisferio norte y en otoño en el hemisferio sur. En la parte norte de esta constelación aparecen dos galaxias destacadas, la galaxia espiral M81, y M82, una posible galaxia espiral cuya estructura es difícil de observar desde la Tierra, ya que aparece de canto. Ambas se muestran aquí como elipses rojas. La nebulosa planetaria M97 (la nebulosa del Búho) se encuentra en el centro de la constelación y está marcada con un círculo verde superpuesto a un signo de más. El eje-y de este diagrama está en grados de declinación con el norte hacia arriba y el eje-x está en horas de ascensión recta con el este a la izquierda. El tamaño de las estrellas marcadas aquí está relacionado con la magnitud aparente de la estrella, una medida de su brillo aparente. Los puntos más grandes representan estrellas más brillantes. Las letras griegas indican las estrellas más brillantes de la constelación. Están ordenadas según su brillo: la estrella más brillante se denomina alfa, la segunda más brillante beta, etc., aunque este orden no siempre se sigue con exactitud. Las líneas punteadas marcan los límites de las constelaciones según la UAI y las líneas verdes continuas marcan una de las formas habituales utilizadas para representar las figuras de las constelaciones. Ni los límites de las constelaciones ni las líneas que unen las estrellas aparecen en el cielo.
Credit: Adaptado por la Oficina de Astronomía para la Educación de la UAI a partir del original de UAI/Sky & Telescope