Whenever  we  mention  Astronomy,  a  telescope  nearly   always  comes  to  mind – the  bigger,  the  better.  And  that’s  great, with  all  the  wonderful  pictures  we  have  been  getting  back  from  Hubble,  Spitzer , Chandra  and  the  rest.  And  we  often  wish  we  had our  own ,  But  owning  a  good telescope  can  be   quite  challenging ,  especially  during  these  “belt-tightening”  times.  So  what  is  one  to  do?  Can  you  imagine  Astronomy  without  a  telescope?  Well,  yes,  there  is  such  a  thing ,  and  its  called  “naked-eye  astronomy’,  and  if  we  practice  it  correctly, it  can  be  an  exciting  part  of  Astronomy.

Naked-eye  Astronomy  is  the  art  of  finding  one’s  way  around  the  night  sky  without  optical  aid.

Most  people  want  to  be  able  to  find  celestial  objects   the  first  night  out.   And  naked-eye  viewing  presents  the  most  straight forward  way  to  do  this.  Without  knowledge  of  the  nightsky,  a  telescope  can be  a disappointing  introduction  to  Astronomy.   For  every  stargazer  who  has  learnt  to  distinguish  one  celestial  object  from  another,   dozens   have  gone  outside ,  armed  with  telescope  and  sky-chart,   only  to  give  up  in  frustration  after  an  hour  or  so . And  it’s  not  the  viewer :  most  charts  are   quite  confusing ,  if  one  does  not   have  some  knowledge  of  the  nightsky.  Naked-eye  Astronomy  prepares  the  viewer  to  overcome  this.  And  with  this  knowledge, it  becomes  fun  to  navigate   one’s  way  around  the  nightsky,  tracking  the  movements  of  closer  planets  etc.  Later,  the  more  detailed  charts  can be  used  to  build  on  the  guides   used  here.  This  is  the  gradual  and  painless way  to know  the  starry  heavens.

Now,  there  limits  to  how  much  one  can  see  with  the  naked  eye.  Of  the  billions  of  stars  in  the  Milky  Way,  just  about  20,000  are visible  to  the human  eye.  The  rest  are  too faint  to  be  seen  without  optical  aid.  We  are  able  to  see only  those  objects  that  are  of  magnitude  6  or  less.

Despite it’s magnificence, the starry night can be a bewildering chaos of luminous points of lights. It takes time to figure it out. And that’s where asterisms come in. Asterisms serve as a bridge between confusion and recognition of the nightsky.

So what is an Asterism? An Asterism can be defined as a group of stars that take the shape of an object that is easily recognized. Examples are the  “Teapot” in Sagittarius, and the “Great  Square “ in Pegasus.

Asterisms are just random alignments of stars from our perspective here on earth.  Often, these stars are at varying distances from each other and  from us, and may not even be related gravitationally. The classical example of this is the asterism  of the Big Dipper in the constellation of Ursa major. The stars here are, in fact, moving away from each other, so in due course we will not be seeing the Big Dipper as we see it now.