Asterisms - Common star patterns in the night sky

Asterisms are patterns or groups of stars that can be part of a constellation or a collection of constellations. Asterisms can also be basic shapes made up of a few stars. Sometimes they are clusters of a few brilliant stars.
Note: This video is written from the perspective of an observer in the northern hemisphere.

Chapters
0:00 - Asterisms Overview
0:53 - Circumpolar Asterisms
5:35 - Winter Asterism
8:16 - Spring Asterisms
16:21 - Summer Asterisms
19:48 - Autumn Asterisms

Circumpolar Asterisms:
Big Dipper (Ursa Major)
Little Dipper (Ursa Minor)
'W' of Cassiopeia (Cassiopeia)

Winter Asterisms:
Orion's Belt (Orion)
Winter Triangle
Winter Hexagon

Spring Asterisms:
Sickle (Leo)
Kite (Boötes)
Keystone (Hercules) and Butterfly (Hercules)
Northern Crown (Corona Borealis)
Southern Cross (Crux)

Summer Asterisms:
Summer Triangle
Northern Cross (Cygnus)
Fish Hook (Scorpius)
Teapot (Sagittarius)

Autumn Asterisms:
Great Square of Pegasus (Pegasus)
Circlet (of Pisces)
Job's Coffin (Delphinus)

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[Crzyspeedfrk]

Tonight I saw Sirius and thought "what is that really bright star that I don't know the name of?"

2 hours later here I am, learning a bunch, and this is the best video ever. Thank you. :)

[jimperkins]

Excellent. Retirement definitely enhances my amateur astronomy.

[asifjamil]

Im a new stargazer and throughout the year ive so far learned the summer and the winter sky, here comes autumn how exciting :D and thanks for the vids <3 you helped a lot

[graceygrumble]

I live 55 degrees north and can jump around the sky greeting old friends.
I went to New Zealand last year (their summer) and the skies were magnificent, but I was lost. It made me sad. Although, I did get a kick out of seeing The Southern Cross.

[leandromantovani]

It’s great. Asterisms are a nice way to learn it . And to follow and find another stars more difficult to spot. Congrats 👏👏👏👏

[bestcomdand]

I'm doing a course on celestial navigation. Your videos really help to keep in mind where all the asterisms, stars, and their names are located when looking up. Tnx.

[mjack]

hint It often helpful to look right at sunset.Not as many stars are as visible and many of the constellations seems just to pop out. once you have seen them it becomes a lot easier. I always thought the winter sky is the easiest of all.

[Bob_M]

This particular video is very helpful for novice astrophotographers like myself in locating points of interest in the night sky. For example using the asymmetrical 'W' of Cassiopeia and the square of Pegasus to locate the Andromeda Galaxy. Great video thank you!

[fernandobautista]

Great video, I like the seasons symbols. Can I just suggest you something? Videos about shutting stars, twinkling stars to sum up videos on those other little useful things. Thanks again.

[mikemamzic]

This is excellent thank you! Cheers from the Poconos!

[yusufchoudhary]

I had already seen the triangle and part of hexagon few weeks ago and this video was awesome

[DonRickyBaby]

Very helpful asterisms. I was lucky enough to view the winter hexagon in full while observing the Geminids even though I'm near the equator.

[exsoulagent]

Very informative video and what’s the background music ?

[TheWildernessChannel]

Great video. Nice to watch this to learn a few new asterisms and to recap on already known asterism and their relative positions in the sky.

[kadhiemayob]

Many thanks for this interesting video. I used to watch night stars all summer while sleeping on top of our village house (in the 60s). I am pretty used to those patterns. Once I had an unusual sight; I saw a pair of "stars" that suddenly moved bumping into each other back and forth about two times followed by big explosion. The light of collision at earth was strong enough that my sister who was sitting and looking downwards felt it and asked what was it? That was in 1966 or 1967. It was right above my head at about 9 PM (North Iraq). I am still curious what could that have been. I believe they were some closer objects than far away stars. Any thoughts? The big dipper was slightly to my north west at the time. The whole event lasted about one second.

[AntPDC]

Very useful; a great way to navigate the stars. You clearly put a lot of work into these uploads, so thank you and well done.
Just in case folk might be confused, a planet (probably Jupiter, maybe Saturn overexposed) is transiting Taurus at 5:47, far outshining its principal orange-red star Aldebaran aka "the red eye of the bull". When I saw that image of Taurus I thought for a second "what the heck is that bright star?"


As to pronunciations, I intend the following as constructive comment, not pedantry. They are international norms in Astronomy. The constellation Boötes is pronounced "boo-OH-teez (the umlaut over the *second* "o" (not the first, as shown in your upload) provides the clue). The star Regulus is always pronounced with a hard "g". No astronomical source I know of has it with a soft "g". Canes Venatici is conventionally pronounced "key-neez vuh-NAT-uh-sahy"; Coma Berenices "koh-muh bEr-uh-NAHY-seez"; and Auriga "aw-RHAY-guh".


Best wishes, and do keep them coming!

[margarettuimising]

Got it lol. Its Scorpius. Asterism is the fish hook. Saw it once in the summer and since i havent seen it again i thought it was my active imagination. So glad to know I was able to identify something in the maze of the sky. Thanks to Learn the Sky for this wonderful rich information about our amazing stupefying universe.

[sarahbell]

This is a GREAT video I've been wanting something like this for a long time, so informative thank you so much. Astronomy is my favorite science and books can only do so much to teach knowledge that needs to be passed down.

[arttytsai]

This is great. Thanks for taking the time.

[mervingcamille]

Hi.
I live in the Seychelles, 5° South of the equator. So the southern hemisphere or the ecliptical zone or even the celestial equator is what I enjoy at night. If that's a thing.
Just found your videos yesterday, and it's fascinating. I've been trying to identify the southern crux because, from my perspective, there's two cross like feature, very close to each other in that region.