Mark Lepkowski wrote:
Constellations convenient for sectioning the grand celestial sphere into
manageable, recognizable pieces. Back in 1930 astronomers snapped some
chalk lines on the sky, got out their jigsaws and cut out some formal
constellation boundaries. They were pretty smart about it -- "they lie
along the meridians of right ascension and parallels of declination for the
mean equator and equinox of 1875.0" according to:

http://www.iau.org/IAU/Activities/no...ure/const.html

Looking at The Cambridge Star Atlas 3rd Edition which is based on the 2000.0
catalogues it's pretty obvious that the old border boundaries are no longer
convenient. Just look at the UMi boundary closest to the pole! It seems to
be a circular arc centered on absolutely nothing pertinent today. To
accurately determine which constellation an object is located in today one
must translate back to the 1875 frame. How about some new formal boundaries
along the meridians of right ascension and parallels of declination for the
mean equator and equinox of 2000.0? Surely there's gotta be some good grant
money available for that kind of thing.

Regards,
-- Mark

Mark Lepkowski
Email: webmaster at mclTunes dot-com
http://www.mcltunes.com



We like the boundaries to stay with the stars that inspired them in the first
place.