Braille Drawing: Constellations: Little and Big Dipper

Size: 13 rows, 26 cells

By: René Holzhauer (2021)

Here we go!

Description of the Drawing

Translated by AI: In this braille drawing, there is something to feel that does not exist on Earth: stars. They are many light-years away from us, and on a cloudless night sky, sighted people can see thousands of them. From very early on, people used particularly bright stars for navigation. They mentally connected some of them, and this is how the constellations came into being. Two of these are represented by dots in this braille drawing: the Little Dipper (at the top of the drawing) and the Big Dipper (at the bottom of the drawing). Both constellations have seven stars/dots each. The size and spacing of the dots are approximately to scale. The Little Dipper has another special feature: at the tip of the handle is the North Star. It is not only a particularly bright star, but is also located near the North Celestial Pole.

Once the braille drawing is complete, you can scratch the imaginary connecting lines into the paper using a sharp object (such as a pair of scissors). This makes the two constellations tactile. The connecting lines are all straight. Both the Little Dipper and the Big Dipper consist of a body and a drawbar. The body consists of four stars/dots, which represent the corners. The dots are connected to form roughly a rectangle. The drawbar consists of three stars/dots and runs to the right in the case of the Little Dipper and to the left in the case of the Big Dipper. Here, the three dots are connected in sequence. Finally, the drawbar is connected to the nearest corner of the body.