About the Shapes of the Constellations

. you'll note, when using our sky charts, that the lines which draw the constellations are different between the color charts and the printer-friendly ones. It doesn't seem that there is a standard way of drawing such lines, as the only official reference about the constellations are the bordaries of them, as determined in 1930 by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). From that move, the important is those boundaries and how the stars are linked inside in the form of figures is of a lesser importance
. a custom, in the domain of amateur astronomy, however exists about those figures of the constellations (a rectangle for Gemini, the Twins, or a pentagon for Auriga, the Charioteer, for example). Those customary forms lately have tended to be modified, based on few solid basis, with that other tendency too that each editor, or each astronomical software, propose their own vision of the constellations
. our site, personally, remains on that idea that it exists a consensus in the amateur astronomy community about the customary forms of the constellations and that you can deem that the most approaching forms displayed with our monthly charts are those of the printer-friendly charts, as the forms on the color charts are more to be questioned. Thus, for your training, the good idea is to memorize the basic forms as proposed by the printer-friendly charts, considering however that they are an approaching estimation only of the most basic -and most customary- forms used by the community of the amateur astronomers