Star constellations

What you need:

• empty poster cardboard tube or similar cylinder (approximately 7cm diameter)
• thin stick (satay stick)
• scissors
• masking tape
• sticky tape
• glue
• stiff cardboard
• pin or compass point
• star templates.

What to do

• Use the stiff card to cut out a circle 7cm in diameter.

• Make a small 'viewing hole' in the middle of this circle.

• Use masking tape to stick the circle to one end of the tube. Try to seal out as much light as possible.

• Use sticky tape to fix the stick to the outside of the tube. Make sure that there is about 1cm of stick protruding from the open end of the tube. (See diagram)

•   Print and cut out the star templates below and glue them to circles of stiff card.

• Use a pin or the point of a compass to poke small holes through the stars.

• Make a small hole towards the edge of your star circles and push the circles onto the stick at the open end of the tube.

• Hold the tube to the light (not the Sun) and look through the viewing hole.

• Record your observations.

• You can try colouring some of your stars by gluing coloured cellophane to your star maps.

Download a pdf of these constellations for your activity (118kb)