The files in this repository define stick figures which depict the 88 astronomical constellations.
They were produced by the author for the purposes of generating the sky charts on the website https://in-the-sky.org. They are also utilised by StarCharter, a command-line tool for producing vector-graphics charts of the night sky, written by the author.
There is no single standard for constellation stick figures: different sources draw the constellations in different ways. The idea of representing the constellations by stick figures was originally popularised by H.A. Rey in his 1952 children's book The Stars: A New Way To See Them. Rey created some quite elaborate figures, often using faint stars that are hard to see with the unaided eye.
The International Astronomical Union (IAU) updated these in collaboration with Alan MacRobert and Sky & Telescope magazine (date unknown); their updated stick figures are shown here and are released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.
Most planetarium programs use their own bespoke simplifications of these figures.
This repository contains data files defining (a) the stick figures in Rey's book, (b) the IAU stick figures, and (c) a simplified set created by the author which closely resembled those used in most planetariums.
The source data files are as follows:
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The file constellation_lines_iau.dat lists the modern IAU stick figures, created by Alan MacRobert et al. They are released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.
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The file constellation_lines_rey.dat lists the historically authentic stick figures, as they appear in Rey's book, transcribed by the author (Dominic Ford) from Rey's original diagrams. Some of the figures are quite elaborate and include connections to very faint stars (mag 5-6).
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The file constellation_lines_simplified.dat lists simplified stick figures, invented by the author (Dominic Ford). They are similar to those used in many planetarium programs, and are restricted to include only stars of fourth magnitude or brighter, except in the faintest constellations. They are released under a GNU General Public License V3.
Each line of the files constellation_lines_iau.dat, constellation_lines_rey.dat and constellation_lines_simplified.dat lists a series of stars which should be joined together in sequence to make a stick figure. The stars are referenced by their Hipparcos numbers; the Hipparcos star catalogue can be freely downloaded here http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/Cat?I/239.
To construct stick figures, connect the stars on each line in turn. At the end of each line of the file, lift your pen and start a new line to connect the list of stars on the next line of the file.
Some constellations are split over multiple lines while others are represented by a single continuous line.
For ease of use, these designs of stick figures are also available in the form of a listing the RA and Dec (J2000) of the stars to be connected, or in the form of the HR numbers of the stars (HR numbers are the catalogue numbers of the stars in the Yale Bright Star Catalog).
The Python script process_stick_figures/constellationLines.py generates these
alternative data files from the original.
This data is distributed under the Gnu General Public License. It is (C) Dominic Ford 2015 - 2024.