Category:Asterism

The term is rather broad.

• In research, the term "asterism" is used to designate visible patterns in the sky that have been used by historical or indigenous cultures.
• Modern hobby astronomers use the term to distinguish a recognizable pattern from the officially defined constellations.
• In Sinology, the term "asterism" is used as an umbrella term, distinguishing between single star-asterisms and multi star-asterisms.
• Hoffmann and Horowitz successfully apply this usage in Assyriology: In this case, the term asterisms would span
  • names of individual stars
  • names of historical constellation figures made out of recognizable star patterns
  • names of super-constellations (which are defined as groups of constellations that where considered together by the ancient cultures: e.g. the Greek group of Hydra+Corvus+Crater or the Chinese "enclosures")

Definition compiled by Clive Ruggles

A set of one or more stars (or other visible objects in the sky) that had cultural meaning, whether or not they correspond to a recognized Western constellation (Johnson, Mahelona and Ruggles 2015: 141; 2025, §3.1.1)

A modern “constellation”—technically speaking—demarcates an area of the sky rather than just being defined by a set of stars (Ridpath 2004: 103). Ruggles (2014: 519) includes a discussion of other definitions of "asterism" that exist in the literature.

References

Johnson, Rubellite K., Mahelona, John K., and Ruggles, Clive (2015). Nā Inoa Hōkū: Hawaiian and Pacific Star Names (2nd edn). Ocarina Books /University of Hawai‘i Press. Johnson, Rubellite K., Mahelona, John K., and Ruggles, Clive (in press, anticiapted 2025). Nā Inoa Hōkū: Hawaiian and Pacific Star Names (3rd edn). Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.

Ridpath, Ian (ed.) (2004). Norton’s Star Atlas and Reference Handbook, 20th edition. New York: Pearson. Ruggles, Clive (2014). Stellar alignments: identification and analysis. In: Clive Ruggles (ed.), Handbook of Archaeoastronomy and Ethnoastronomy. New York: Springer, pp. 517–530.