The star patterns anyone can find
The Big Dipper, the Summer Triangle, Orion’s Belt, the Southern Cross: shapes made of bright stars, called asterisms, that you can learn in one evening without a telescope. Here are 19 of the best known — which of them are up tonight from your place, and when the others come round.
Up tonight
Later in the year
Summer Triangle
Vega, Deneb and Altair: three bright stars in a huge triangle, with the Milky Way flowing through it.
Winter Triangle
Betelgeuse, Sirius and Procyon: an almost equilateral triangle of three of the brightest stars in the sky.
Winter Hexagon
Six of the brightest stars ring the winter sky — Rigel, Aldebaran, Capella, Pollux, Procyon and Sirius — with Betelgeuse inside.
Spring Triangle
Arcturus, Spica and Regulus mark out the spring sky, with a dark patch full of galaxies inside.
Big Dipper
Seven bright stars of Ursa Major in a ladle; the two at the end of the bowl point to Polaris.
Little Dipper
Polaris at the end of its handle: a faint dipper that shows how dark your sky is.
Cassiopeia’s W
Five bright stars in a W (or an M) on the opposite side of Polaris from the Big Dipper.
Great Square of Pegasus
Four stars in a big, nearly empty square — the body of the flying horse and the signpost of autumn evenings.
Orion’s Belt and Sword
Three equal stars in a straight line, and below them the Sword with the Orion Nebula.
Northern Cross
The brightest stars of Cygnus in a big cross along the Milky Way, from Deneb down to Albireo.
Teapot
Eight stars of Sagittarius drawn as a teapot, with the Milky Way rising from the spout like steam.
Sickle of Leo
A backwards question mark of six stars — the Lion’s head and mane — with Regulus at its foot.
Keystone
A wedge of four stars at the heart of Hercules, with the great globular cluster M13 on its western side.
Southern Cross and the Pointers
The famous kite-shaped cross of the southern sky, with the two brilliant Pointers beside it.
False Cross
A bigger, dimmer cross of four stars in Carina and Vela that fools many first-time southern stargazers.
Head of Draco
Four stars in a small lozenge near Vega: the Dragon’s head, with orange Eltanin as its brightest eye.
Job’s Coffin
A tiny diamond of four stars, the body of Delphinus, the Dolphin — one of the prettiest sights in binoculars.
Circlet of Pisces
A faint ring of six stars below the Great Square of Pegasus — a test of a dark sky.
Diamond Cross
Four bright stars of Carina in a diamond, with the Southern Pleiades at its eastern point.
Not seen from here
What an asterism is
An asterism is a pattern of stars that people recognise but that is not one of the 88 official constellations. Some are part of a constellation — the Big Dipper is seven stars of Ursa Major, the Teapot the brightest part of Sagittarius. Others borrow stars from several: the Summer Triangle takes one from each of Lyra, Cygnus and Aquila. Because they are made of the brightest stars, asterisms are usually easier to spot than the constellations around them, and they make good signposts: the Pointers of the Big Dipper lead to Polaris, and Orion’s Belt points to Sirius.
The pictures show the patterns as they look when you face south from the northern hemisphere: north at the top, east on the left. From the southern hemisphere, turn them upside down. Through the night every pattern turns around the celestial pole, so you may find it standing on end or lying on its side.
Star clusters that look like little patterns of their own, such as the Pleiades, the Hyades and the Coathanger, are in the catalog; the constellations themselves are in the guide to the 88 constellations.