You ever stare at a stucco ceiling and start to see shapes and images form? It’s just like that.

It is the rare occasion when I get to explain again on the internet that constellations are like, an entire region of the sky. Thus it includes all the stars in that region. What we have now collectively conceived as the representing image of constellations is technically an asterism. Asterism is the line pattern by which we find constellations, an schematic representation of the relative pattern of some stars to others. Some constellations are defined by the asterism included in them (southern cross, e.g.) but many asterism exist that do not define constellations (Pleiades). Many popular constellations are the result of a broader perception of all the stars in their region, sort of like when seeing figures in clouds, but most are actually not, and are named due to the associated cultural tradition. However, they are less noticeable now with light pollution being the norm. All constellations have a designated asterism, usually made of the brightest stars inside the constellation that help find the general location of the constellation, but the constellation itself is the region of the sky.

It was more than 4 stars, it included a few more stars to form the bear’s long tail.

“But bears don’t have long tails…”

When the constellations were named, you could see a lot more stars with the naked eye.
And Saint Anthony’s Fire helped a bit with the imagination, too.

Constellations are a greek thing, the plague is newer.

Classic constellations actually have a ton of stars associated with them, we just can’t see them anymore.

When you’re an introvert and everybody in the cave is getting too rowdy, so you start staring at the sky, then this kind of stuff happens.

And then at some point we went from that to starting mass labor projects around aligning rocks with these celestials.

My theory is that organized slavery arose when some elders had a mental break when someone nudged their stone circle for the Xth time, so they decided to go big with it.

It’s seven stars