this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2023
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[–] hamandjam@lemmy.world 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The thing people always overlook is that some of those names were given to the shapes that were seen thousands of years ago. And since then the position of those stars as we perceive them have changed quite a bit. And if they've moved in dissimilar directions, there can be quite a substantial change in the shape we see compared to what they saw. So the older the designation of a constellation is, the more it's distorted.

[–] Natanael@slrpnk.net 0 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Due to the sheer size of space, this is most likely to have happened to stars closer to us (same thing as parallax effect, the same speed / moved distance moves something close more angular degrees across the sky)

[–] cedeho@feddit.de 0 points 11 months ago

No, it's mostly because of precession of the axis of rotation of the earth.