Stars & Constellations
Field reference for naked-eye astronomy — finding north, identifying bright stars and constellations, recognizing planets, and tracking the Moon and meteor showers.
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Sample entries · read in full
Polaris, the current northern pole star
Polaris is a yellow supergiant in the northern circumpolar constellation of Ursa Minor. It is designated alpha Ursae Minoris and is commonly called the North Star. Its apparent magnitude fluctuates around 1.98, making…
Read in full →Finding Polaris using the Big Dipper's pointer stars
In star-finding practice, Ursa Major's pointer stars are extended outward from the bowl of the Big Dipper to land on Polaris, which sits within one degree of the north celestial pole. The technique works year-round from…
Read in full →Bright stars by season
From mid-northern latitudes, a small set of first-magnitude stars dominates the evening sky in each season. Knowing which star is which, and roughly when it is best placed, makes the rest of the sky much easier to…
Read in full →All 30 entries
Finding North
Northern Constellations
- Ursa Major, the Great Bear In app
- Cassiopeia and its W shape In app
- Pleiades, the Seven Sisters cluster In app
- Andromeda, host of the Great Galaxy In app
- Cygnus, the Northern Cross In app
- Spotting the Andromeda Galaxy with the naked eye In app
Southern/Equatorial Constellations
- Orion, the winter hunter In app
- Scorpius, the southern zodiac scorpion In app
Bright Stars
- Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky In app
- Vega, the bright zero-point star In app
- Arcturus, brightest of the northern hemisphere In app
- Identifying the Summer Triangle In app
- Bright stars by season Sample ✓
Sky Mechanics
- The Milky Way as a naked-eye object In app
- Meteor showers and how they work In app
- The Perseids meteor shower In app
Moon
- Lunar phases and the synodic month In app
- Lunar eclipses and the blood moon In app
- Solar eclipses and observing safety In app
- Watching a lunar eclipse In app
- Watching a solar eclipse safely In app
- Lunar phases and key terms In app
Planets
- Telling planets apart from stars In app
- Planet visibility cheat sheet In app
Observing
- Observing a meteor shower In app
- Setting up for a meteor shower In app
- Pre-observing dark-site checklist In app