Caption: 2022年國際天文學聯合會（IAU）OAE天文攝影比賽靜態天體圖案類別榮譽獎作品。 這張照片於2021年10 月在埃及西奈半島聖凱瑟琳的達爾艾德拍攝，展示了昴星團——一個被俗稱“七姐妹星”的疏散星團。 昴星團位於金牛座的西北部。金牛座源自古巴比倫人甚至蘇美爾人的信仰，它被當時的人們稱為天牛，是天神所擁有的強大生物。在巴比倫晚期，昴星團被稱為“牛背上的鬃毛”。在中國，這個星宿也被稱為“毛髮”（譯者注：其實“昴”並沒有“毛髮”的含義，可能僅僅是其讀音與“毛”相似，使作者產生了誤解），但這並不一定意味著東亞和西亞對這個星宿的稱呼有任何聯繫，儘管有人假設這兩個文明通過絲綢之路的建立而進行了交流。 在古巴比倫的文獻中，並沒有出現將昴星團稱為“毛髮”的記載。相反，昴星團在蘇美爾語中被稱為“星團”，而蘇美爾語中的這個詞被後來的語言作為借詞所引入。蘇美爾和巴比倫早期的宗教將所有星座與特定的神靈聯繫在一起，包括天神、惡魔、神使。昴星團與一位被稱為“七”的冥界神靈有關，被認為是七種會說話的武器或全副武裝的神靈的集合體。後來希臘人將其命名為“七姐妹星”，可能是源於不同文化間對這一古老宗教聯繫的誤解，因為事實上並不能在這個星團中看到七顆星。 昴星團在天空中確實非常顯眼，因此被用於多種文化目的，如確定曆法和春分。然而，在文化天文學中，它的重要性經常被誇大。由於用七個圓點表示昴星團的傳統源於古代蘇美爾信仰，因此將石器時代以來歐洲、亞洲和美洲的洞穴牆壁和考古遺址上的七個圓點解釋為昴宿星團時，我們應該慎重起見。 現代天體物理學發現，昴星團非常年輕，因此在古代肯定沒有額外的恆星。此外，我們還知道，昴星團中所見的明亮恆星只是整個疏散星團的核心區域，該星團其實由散布在天空中的數百顆恆星組成，在任何方向的延展尺度都超過明亮核心的一到兩個直徑。這張照片甚至沒有顯示出整個星團。昴星團距離地球大約400光年，從天文學的角度來說是比較近的。
Credit: Mohamed Usama/IAU OAE

Caption: The constellation Andromeda showing the bright stars and surrounding constellations. Andromeda is surrounded by (going clockwise from the top) Cassiopeia, Lacerta, Pegasus, Pisces, Aries, Triangulum and Perseus. The brightest star in Andromeda (Alpheratz) is in the lower part of the constellation. Together with three stars in Pegasus it forms the asterism known as the "Great Square of Pegasus". The next two bright stars in the constellation (Mirach and Almach) form a line extending north-east from Alpheratz. Andromeda is a northern constellation and is most visible in the evenings in the Northern Hemisphere autumn. It is visible from all of the Northern Hemisphere and most temperate regions of the Southern Hemisphere but is not visible from Antarctic and Subantarctic regions. The most famous object in Andromeda, the Andromeda Galaxy is marked here with a red ellipse and its Messier catalog number M31. The yellow circle on the left marks the position of the open cluster NGC 752 and the green circle on the right marks NGC 7662 (the blue snowball nebula), a planetary nebula. The y-axis of this diagram is in degrees of declination with north as up and the x-axis is in hours of right ascension with east to the left. The sizes of the stars marked here relate to the star's apparent magnitude, a measure of its apparent brightness. The larger dots represent brighter stars. The Greek letters mark the brightest stars in the constellation. These are ranked by brightness with the brightest star being labeled alpha, the second brightest beta, etc., although this ordering is not always followed exactly. The dotted boundary lines mark the IAU's boundaries of the constellations and the solid green lines mark one of the common forms used to represent the figures of the constellations. Neither the constellation boundaries, nor the lines joining the stars appear on the sky.
Credit: Adapted by the IAU Office of Astronomy for Education from the original by IAU/Sky & Telescope

Caption: The constellation Scorpius (often commonly called Scorpio) along with its bright stars and surrounding constellations. Scorpius is surrounded by (going clockwise from the top) Ophiuchus, Serpens Caput, Libra, Lupus, Norma, Ara, Corona Australis and Sagittarius. Scorpius’s brightest star Antares appears in the heart of the constellation with the famous tail of Scoprius in the south-east (lower left). Scorpius lies on the ecliptic (shown here as a blue line), this is the path the Sun appears to take across the sky over the course of a year. The Sun only spends a short amount of time in late November in Scorpius. The other planets of the Solar System can often be found in Scorpius. Scorpius lies south of the celestial equator. The whole constellation is not visible from the most arctic regions of the world with parts of Scorpius obscured for observers in northern parts of Asia, Europe and North America. Scorpius is most visible in the evenings in the northern hemisphere summer and southern hemisphere winter. The yellow circles mark the positions of the open clusters M6, M7 & NGC 6231 while the yellow circles with plus signs superimposed on them mark the globular clusters M4 and M80. The y-axis of this diagram is in degrees of declination with north as up and the x-axis is in hours of right ascension with east to the left. The sizes of the stars marked here relate to the star's apparent magnitude, a measure of its apparent brightness. The larger dots represent brighter stars. The Greek letters mark the brightest stars in the constellation. These are ranked by brightness with the brightest star being labeled alpha, the second brightest beta, etc., although this ordering is not always followed exactly. The circle around Antares indicates that it is a variable star. The dotted boundary lines mark the IAU's boundaries of the constellations and the solid green lines mark one of the common forms used to represent the figures of the constellations. The blue line marks the ecliptic, the path the Sun appears to travel across the sky over the course of one year. Neither the constellation boundaries, nor the line marking the ecliptic, nor the lines joining the stars appear on the sky.
Credit: Adapted by the IAU Office of Astronomy for Education from the original by IAU/Sky & Telescope

Caption: The constellation Sagittarius along with its bright stars and surrounding constellations. Sagittarius is surrounded by (going clockwise from the top) Aquila, Scutum, Serpens Cauda, Ophiuchus, Scorpius, Corona Australis, Telescopium, Microscopium and Capricornus. The brighter stars in Sagittarius form a distinctive teapot shape. Sagittarius lies on the ecliptic (shown here as a blue line), this is the path the Sun appears to take across the sky over the course of a year. The Sun is in Sagittarius from mid December to mid January. The other planets of the Solar System can often be found in Sagittarius. Sagittarius lies south of the celestial equator. The famous teapot asterism is visible for all but the most arctic regions of the world but the most southerly parts of the constellation are not visible in northern parts of Asia, Europe and North America. Sagittarius is most visible in the evenings in the northern hemisphere summer and southern hemisphere winter. The supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* which lies at the center of our Milky Way Galaxy is sits on the western (here right-hand) edge of Sagittarius. Due to it covering an area at the center of our Galaxy, Sagittarius is home to many star clusters including open clusters (marked here with yellow circles) and globular clusters (marked here with yellow circles with + signs superimposed on them). Three nebulae are also marked here with green squares. The y-axis of this diagram is in degrees of declination with north as up and the x-axis is in hours of right ascension with east to the left. The sizes of the stars marked here relate to the star's apparent magnitude, a measure of its apparent brightness. The larger dots represent brighter stars. The Greek letters mark the brightest stars in the constellation. These are ranked by brightness with the brightest star being labeled alpha, the second brightest beta, etc., although this ordering is not always followed exactly. The dotted boundary lines mark the IAU's boundaries of the constellations and the solid green lines mark one of the common forms used to represent the figures of the constellations. Neither the constellation boundaries, nor the line marking the ecliptic, nor the lines joining the stars appear on the sky.
Credit: Adapted by the IAU Office of Astronomy for Education from the original by IAU/Sky & Telescope

Caption: 寶瓶座及其明亮恆星與周邊星座示意圖。從頂部開始沿順時針方向，寶瓶座周邊的星座依次為：飛馬座、小馬座、天鷹座、摩羯座、南魚座、玉夫座、鯨魚座和雙魚座。寶瓶座位於黃道上。從地球看來，太陽以一年為週期在天球上移動，所經過的路徑稱為黃道，在圖中以藍色實線標注。太陽在每年二月中旬到三月中旬位於寶瓶座。太陽系中的其他行星也經常出現在寶瓶座。 寶瓶座橫跨天赤道，因此在地球上的任何地方，一年中的某些時候都能看到它。在地球南北兩極，寶瓶座的某些部分可能不可見。寶瓶座在北半球的秋季和南半球的春季夜晚最適宜觀測。 球狀星團M2和M72在圖中以疊加了十字符號的黃色圓圈標注。行星狀星雲NGC 7293（螺旋星雲）和NGC 7002（土星狀星雲）在圖中以疊加了十字符號的綠色圓圈標注。M73在圖中以叉號標注，它是一個偶然形成的恆星群，之前被錯誤歸類為疏散星團。 該圖的縱軸為赤緯，橫軸為赤經，方向為上北下南左東右西。圖中標注的恆星大小對應其視星等——衡量天體視亮度的標準，較大的圓點代表著較亮的恆星。圖中的希臘字母標注著星座中最亮的恆星。這些恆星按亮度排序，最亮的一般被標記為α星，第二亮的一般為β星，等等，不過這種字母排序並不總是和實際亮度排序完全一致。圖中虛線標注的是國際天文學聯合會劃定的星座邊界，綠色實線則是一種常見的星座形象連線。需要注意的是，在實際觀測時，這些邊界與連線都不會出現在天空中。
Credit: 由國際天文學聯合會天文教育辦公室根據國際天文學聯合會/《天空與望遠鏡》的原文改編

Caption: The constellation Crux (commonly known as the Southern Cross or Crux Australis) showing its bright stars and surrounding constellations. The Southern Cross is surrounding by (going clockwise from the top) Centaurus, Carina and Musca. The brightest star is alpha Crucis which appears at the bottom of the constellation's famous kite shape. The Southern Cross is visible from southern and equatorial regions of the world. In more southerly parts of the world it is circumpolar so is always above the horizon. In other parts of the southern hemisphere and in equatorial regions it is most visible in the evenings in the southern hemisphere autumn. The yellow circles show the locations of two open clusters, NGC 4755 (known as the Jewel Box) and NGC 4609. The line joining gamma and alpha Crucis (the third and first brightest stars in the Southern Cross) points in the approximate direction of the South Celestial Pole. This has led to the Southern Cross playing an important role in celestial navigation, allowing navigators from different astronomical traditions to find their bearings. The y-axis of this diagram is in degrees of declination with north as up and the x-axis is in hours of right ascension with east to the left. The sizes of the stars marked here relate to the star's apparent magnitude, a measure of its apparent brightness. The larger dots represent brighter stars. The Greek letters mark the brightest stars in the constellation. These are ranked by brightness with the brightest star being labeled alpha, the second brightest beta, etc., although this ordering is not always followed exactly. The dotted boundary lines mark the IAU's boundaries of the constellations and the solid green lines mark one of the common forms used to represent the figures of the constellations. Neither the constellation boundaries, nor the lines joining the stars appear on the sky.
Credit: Adapted by the IAU Office of Astronomy for Education from the original by IAU/Sky & Telescope.