My Terrible Space Confession…

constellations

This is one of the many constellations that I’d like to easily identify in the sky.


I love outer space. I would read every space-based science fiction book out there. I dreamed of being an astronaut as a child, of one day moving to a city on the Moon, or Mars, or in orbit around the Earth. Everything about outer space amazes me. Except I have one glaring weakness:
I don’t know the constellations.
I look up at the sky and, like most people, am blown away by the vastness of the universe. But if you ask me about the constellations, I can’t tell you anything.
Sure, I can identify the Big Dipper. And Orion’s belt, because it’s three starts in a line. But if you ask me to identify Gemini, Taurus, Aries, or anything else in the sky, I curl up into a ball.
It’s one of those things that have always bothered me. The stars don’t look anything like the images that they are supposed to represent, so I never bothered learning them. But years later I regret that decision. That’s why I’m going to take a course in astronomy.
I like online courses (community colleges at night scare me) so I’ve decided to enroll in an udemy course that teaches you astronomy for beginners. I used a coupon website so it only costs me $10.
Update: Since people have been requesting which site I used, I’m including a link here:

I’m looking forward to brushing up on the things I already know, as well as finally going over the constellations and learning them properly.

Do You Know the Constellations Off By Heart?

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There’s an amazing scene in an episode of Star Trek (the original series) where McCoy wakes up on a strange city (he’d been injected with a drug that made him temporarily deranged) and he looked up at the stars and said: “Well, this is Earth, the stars are right, but the clothing is all wrong” (McCoy had traveled back to the 1930’s). Anyway, my point is that I’d like to have that skill, where I can look up at the stars and know what direction I am going.

That would be pretty handy, right?
By the way, this is the course I’m taking: https://www.udemy.com/astronomy-state-of-the-art/.