The best autumn constellations are putting on quite a show in the evening sky. Pegasus the Winged Horse is pulling Andromeda the Princess in the eastern sky.
In the traditional interpretation of this constellation, Pegasus is an upside-down flying horse with no visible wings and tiny legs.
What many stargazers like to do is to take the liberty of taking the same stars and making Pegasus into a right-side-up, majestic flying horse with a huge wing span, rescuing lovely Princess Andromeda from a giant ravenous sea monster.
My version of Pegasus resembles the flying red horse logo you see at Mobile gas stations, for what it’s worth.
To see the flying horsey in the Northwest sky, the first thing you need to do is find four moderately bright stars that make a nearly perfect square in the high early evening eastern sky.
It’s actually known as the Great Square of Pegasus that outlines the torso of the airborne horse. T
This time of year the square is actually diagonally orientated and is often referred to as the autumn diamond.
The stars in the big square /diamond are easy to spot since they are the brightest stars in that part of the sky. The highest star at the top corner of the square is the star Scheat, pronounced she-at.
Scheat is the base of the horse’s neck. Look just above and a little to the right of Scheat for two other stars that outline the rest of the neck and another fairly faint star to the lower right of the neck that marks the flying horse’s nose.
The horse has a multijointed magical front leg that extends upward in a curved line.
To see it, start at Markab, on the right corner of the square of Pegasus. From there, look for a curved line of slightly fainter stars that extends up to the upper right of Markeb. The modestly brighter star at the hoof of Pegasus is called Enif.
I love the name of the star on the left corner of the square of Pegasus. It’s called Alpheratz, pronounced Al-fee-rats.
You can’t help but see a curved line of three bright stars extending to the left of Alpheratz. You are looking at a sideways view of the wings of Pegasus.
If you look above that bright line of stars you’ll see another curved line of fainter stars. That outlines Andromeda the Princess, who is hitching a ride on the rearend of the horse.
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