Flamsteed Astronomy Society

Ian Ridpath

Ian Ridpath is an author, broadcaster and lecturer on astronomy and space with over 40 book titles to his name. He is editor of the Oxford Dictionary of Astronomy and of the last three editions of Norton’s Star Atlas. He is a recent winner of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific’s award for outstanding contributions to the public understanding and appreciation of astronomy, previous recipients of which have included Carl Sagan and Patrick Moore. One of his particular interests is the origin and history of the constellations, which will form the subject of his talk.

Ian will be giving us a talk about “Pictures in the Sky”. In the days before writing, storytellers used the sky as a picture book to illustrate their tales of gods, mythical heroes and fabulous beasts. Those pictures among the stars were the origin of our system of constellations. Today, the entire sky is divided into 88 constellations of varying shapes and sizes. This talk, which includes illustrations from some of the world’s greatest star atlases, will trace the origin of the constellation system back to Greek times and explain who filled in the gaps between the ancient Greek figures, who decided on the official boundaries between constellations, and how the names of certain stars came about.