Thing 182 Learn and Identify Constellations

How many is too many constellations to know off by heart? Because there's no way I'm learning all of them. We've spoken about this people, goldfish memory. Sometimes I learn new things, and it pushes old stuff out of my head... Must resist urge to reference The Simpsons....

So I learned a few. It's not all drinking pee and naked housekeeping around here, sometimes I do something productive and learn about things and junk. Parteen is, aside from being the centre of the known universe, an excellent place to both grow up, and to star gaze. It's just outside the city enough that light pollution isn't a big deal so on clear nights... boom. Stars. Awesome.

Smart people have impressed me for years by saying smart things like: That group over there is called the Yadda Yadda Yadda I'm So Clever constellation, and that one is called Steve the Cowboy Constellation (sorry couldn't resist two Simpsons' references in a row). The vast sum of my knowledge about stars goes like this: There's The Plow, in America it's called The Big Dipper, and also, they're shiny.
Obviously enough the first thing I went looking for is Aries. Not because I wanted it to predict my future, but because I wanted to see if it looked like a ram. That's the picture up there, judge for yourself...

Ya. That's what I thought. Aries shouldn't be called The Ram it should be called The Scrawl... It's right next to the other famous star sign - Pisces The Scrawl. I also learned Andromeda, the very aptly named Triangulum, Ursa Major, which is pretty neat since it's got The Plow as part of it, and this is the only part of space I recognise (with the exception, obviously, of The Sun and The Moon. They're pretty hard to miss...). I also learned Draco and my personal favourite...
Not that one... the next one...
Cassiopeia. Not because it's better than the others, but because it's squiggly and has a most excellent and interesting name.

Now I can impress the hell out of people by pointing at the sky and saying crap like: That squiggle is called So and So Aren't I great constellation, and the longer squiggle is called the Don't You Wish You Were Clever Like Me constellation.

Learning is fun. Being smug is funner.