Favorite Star Patterns

During the summer months, the Summer Triangle star formation lights the sky from dusk until dawn. It consists of three bright stars: Vega in the constellation Lyra, Deneb in the constellation Cygnus, and Altair in the constellation Aquila.

The Big and Little Dippers appear in the northern sky, near Polaris, the North Star.

The Coathanger star cluster – also known as Brocchi’s cluster – is a tiny pattern of stars on our sky’s dome. It really looks like a coat hanger and is surprisingly easy to make out through binoculars. The trick to viewing the Coathanger is to start from the star Albireo and to star-hop to its spot in the sky.

The Northern Cross isn’t one of the 88 official constellations. Instead, it’s an “asterism” or recognizable pattern of stars. It’s part of the constellation Cygnus the Swan.

The constellation Taurus the Bull is home to the two brightest star clusters, the Hyades and Pleiades. The Hyades represents the Bull’s face and is easy to see in the night sky because it has a distinctive V-shape. The brightest star in the V is Aldebaran, which represents the fiery red eye of Taurus. Aldebaran is not a true cluster member, however. Its distance from Earth is less than the distance to the other Hyades stars.

The constellation Crux – otherwise called the Southern Cross – is a fixture of southern hemisphere skies. But it can be seen from tropical and subtropical regions of the northern hemisphere as well. In the United States, this constellation is visible on May evenings from Hawaii and the southernmost parts of Florida and Texas.

We in modern times may not be able to imagine the stars of Sagittarius as a Centaur. Instead, many stargazers know the stars of Sagittarius as a Teapot. Two things set Sagittarius apart from all other constellations. First, the winter solstice sun shines in front of Sagittarius. Second, Sagittarius marks the direction to the center of our Milky Way galaxy.

The Great Square of Pegasus consists of four stars of nearly equal brightness that make a large square pattern. It is best seen from September to March.