Well I've been getting into trying to identify constellations. Always admired people that could do it, and so each (clear) day in HalfMoonBayCalifornia I go outside and try to find constellations. I've been using the great website http://www.heavens-above.com to learn the constellations. So far, I've nailed a few. What's really fun is that as you train yourself, each day you go out and can really quickly find the constellations whereas before you had no clue.

• San Mateo County Astronomical Society
  • http://home.covad.net/~alcoat/smcas/smcas.htm
  • http://home.add.net/~bob-black/smas.htm
  • http://www.smccd.net/accounts/csmastronomy

• Another fabulous website for star charts is Your Sky

• Orion - yeah, ok an easy one - this is actually what got me started. I kept seeing these three stars in a row and wondered what they were. Of course suddenly people I know tell me "oh yeah, that's the one everyone always finds first". It's also a 'winter' constellation as it's obvious this time of year
  

• Taurus - Right next to Orion. Looks like a squished triangle. It's right horn is part of Auriga, which is like a pentagon

• Gemini - the twins. I really like this one and was excited when I picked it out. If you look at it right, it really looks like 2 stick figures holding hands!
  

• Ursa Major/Big Dipper - ok, maybe even easier than orion. But turns out the part we think of as the dipper is really just his tail. His paws are neat when you find them (see picture below). Having a hard time finding the little dipper still.
  

• Check this out for info on how the stars exist by God's hand and how they point to Christ (wildly interesting to me).

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Here's a map of the universe with a Logarhythmic scale. There's an article about it, and here's the homepage for it.

-- MattWalsh - 17 Dec 2001