Yet another faint constellation with no really bright stars, although it has an ancient legend it was only formed by Tycho Brahe in 1601. According to legend Queen Berenice of Egypt vowed to cut off her beautiful hair and place it in the temple of Venus, provided that her husband returned safely from a war against the Assyrians. When the king returned Bernices kept her promise and so impressed the gods that they transferred the flowing locks of her hair to the night sky.

Columba the Dove which represents the dove that followed Noah’s Ark, or some legends say it was the dove that the Argonauts sent ahead to help them pass safely through the clashing rocks at the entrance to the Black Sea.

If you thought you knew what a comet was then you may have to think again, astronomers are trying to work out exactly what a comet is!

Another of the small and obscure constellations added to the southern sky by the French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille. Circinus is a compass placed appropriately next to the constellation of Norma the Level, which is also equally obscure.

A faint constellation in the southern sky near the south pole. It was created by Dutch astronomer Petrus Plancius in 1598 from the observations of the Dutch explores Pieter Keyser and Frederick de Houtman. It would appear the star atlas Uranometria prepared by Johann Bayer in 1603.

A biblical story with an astronomical ending. These cities were destroyed by a meteor strike.

Cetus was formerly the Kraken from Greek mythology, a large constellation it contains the first variable star to be identified, omicron ceti or Mira the Wonderful.

Although not as bright as his queen Cassiopeia, Cepheus does contain the star delta Cephei that was discovered to be variable in 1784 by the deaf astronomer John Goodricke in York. Today Cepheid variables are used by astronomers to work out how far away clusters and galaxies are.

The scholarly centaur who taught many of the Greek heroes, he was placed in the sky when accidently struck by a poison arrow fired by Hercules. The constellation contains the closest star to Earth apart from the Sun

The bossy queen who started all the trouble for Perseus, Pegasus and the other character from the Greek mythology that figure in the film the Clash of the Titans,