Welcome back again and hi there if you are new. In this piece we are going to find the star constellations of Aries The Ram and Taurus The Bull in the Winter Northern Hemisphere sky.
This post is part of a go-at-your-own pace, home school for grown-ups beginner course in Alternative Astronomy where we’ve been learning to identify the star constellations of the Northern Hemisphere sky by season of the year.
If you need to catch up at anytime, you can visit our Table of Contents page (click here) because we will be picking up on things we’ve already learned as we dive back in here to get to know the constellations of Aries The Ram and Taurus The Bull in this piece.
As we begin we are going to look at an image of how the Northern Hemisphere sky appears during the beginning of February at the hour after the sun sets for the day.
How To Find Aries The Ram in the Night Sky
We are going to use the knowledge we’ve already learned to find Aries The Ram, first. In previous lessons we’ve learned how to find the constellations of Cetus, Pisces and Pegasus and as you can see now here in the beginning of February Cetus, Pisces and Pegasus are now found to the West of that special cross of the North-South Meridian Line and the arc of the ecliptic in the middle of the Real All-Seeing Eye in the sky. If you look just a bit eastward (to your left) of Pisces location, just above the head of Cetus, sits Aries The Ram.
Aries is a small constellation, but usually not difficult to find because of Aries’ bright stars. However, Aries is one of those constellations that make it difficult to see how our ancient ancestors saw a ram in this grouping of stars, maybe they saw a ram’s horn there?
I raise this question because if you trace back the history of both constellations Aries and Taurus, you find these are some of the oldest constellations, going back all the way to a time before we as people had even invented writing yet, but when we did develop it, you can find many stories throughout various cultures mythologies and religious texts that involve rams, lambs and shepherds attending to their flocks, for example.
We are learning more and more about how those stories that most of us would think of as “heavenly tales” are really the stories of how the real heavens move above all of our heads. So from this perspective then, it really is the truth that can be known once you stop just believing in the story as we’ve been taught and look at what it’s really describing and we can see clearly what it is through this Alternative Astronomy lens we’re looking through.
How To Find Taurus The Bull in the Night Sky
From Aries’ location, turn your gaze slightly more Eastward (to your left) and lined up right at the special cross of the N-S Meridian Line and arc of the ecliptic you should be able to find Taurus The Bull easily. See if you can locate the star cluster called Pleiades at the Western edge of Taurus. The Pleiades is a very bright feature of Taurus that is easily identifiable.
Also see if you can identify the bright reddish star called Aldebaran, also known as The Bull’s Eye. Pleiades and Aldebaran are the brightest features of Taurus which makes this constellation so easy to find.
Like Aries, Taurus is one of the oldest known constellations and is easier to see how our ancient ancestors saw a bull in this star grouping, as well.
Taurus is also found in many ancient mythological tales as well as religious texts where this constellation is represented in allegory, where the storytellers are alluding to the reality of the real heavens that is cycling night after night, day after day above all or our heads…the same way it may have always been, perhaps thousands of years, maybe forever. I think this is why they are called the eternal heavens in many ancient texts.
Some of the information in this piece comes from our book series Constellations by Campfire for the Winter Season (click here to get it)
For the Aries The Ram or Taurus The Bull designs featured in this post, visit our shop (click here)
We will be talking more about both Aries and Taurus in future posts, but for now step outside this February the hour after the sun sets, face South and look up at the Real All-Seeing Eye in the sky and see if you can spot Aries The Ram and you will hit the bullseye if you can spot Taurus as well.
Until next time…stay lit and be well,
shannon
If you prefer to watch the video version of this post, you can find it below: