In my amateur sky gazing, I enjoy looking at the shapes of the southern star groups and inventing new constellations. Is this a legitimate topic for discussion here?
For example, the Southern Cross, Crux, has the shape of the map of Australia, with the five stars corresponding to Western Australia, Cape York, Cape Byron, Tasmania and Lake Eyre. Building on this model, two nearby stars map to the North Island and South Island of New Zealand, and the constellation of Scorpius maps to China.
Crux has a spiral form, with a small cross inside it. If the vertical axis of Crux is then considered as the lateral axis of a larger cross, the imaginary point at the base of this larger cross can then be seen as forming the lateral axis of a yet larger cross, and so on, forming a widening spiral.
Another example is the constellation Argo, which appears clearly as a ship in a way that is not seen from the northern latitudes. Canopus is the prow, the false cross partly in Carina is the keel, and other stars match the deck. This is different from the old representation of Puppis as the poop deck and Vela as the sails. On this model, the cluster NGC2516 near the false cross I call the mermaid, as it is located at the point at the front of the keel where a figurehead was attached. As well, the two Clouds of Magellan are like waves of the sea.
The stars below Argo form a side-on pentagonal pyramid beneath the ship, pointing down to a base of a pentagonal diamond at the South Celestial Pole.
Do others have similar new constellations they have invented?
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