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It's All on the Map
Home » Astronomy » Star Charts » It's All on the MapImagine yourself in a strange city with lots of streets—or lost in the countryside at a crossroads. This is a whole lot like how it feels when you begin astronomy and look up at all those stars!
Relax. Just like here on Earth, all the wonderful places you can visit in the Cosmos are plotted and mapped out in diagrams called star charts. Once you become familiar with using them, they aren’t much different than using a terrestrial map to take you to a certain location.
You’ll learn constellations have borders—just like a state or country. They have lines—not unlike marked roads. Star charts even have stars numbered and lettered just like a street address. So what happens when you are looking up an unfamiliar town? Just like a road map, celestial coordinates will guide you just as surely as the letters in one row and the numbers in another on a terrestrial map. Locating an object that is at 6 hours and 45 degrees is the same as finding a town in column D, row 10.
Just like learning the streets and landmarks in a new town, it won’t be long until you’re navigating the skies with ease!
Related Star Charts Articles
- It's All on the Map
- What are star charts?
- Where do I go to find star charts?
- How do I learn to read them?
- How do I translate the maps to what I can see in the sky?
- Are there maps for the Moon and planets?