Starry Night This Week

Each week most PBS stations air "Jack Horkheimer: Star Gazer", the world's first and only weekly TV series on naked-eye astronomy. The Starry Night images on this page illustrate the show for the week of Monday September 27th, 2010. You can view the complete show script, or download an iTunes/iPod video of the show.

Say Farewell to Summer's Cosmic Triangle and Welcome to Autumn's Cosmic Square

Nearly overhead on late evenings in early October, northern hemisphere observers should be able to spot the Great Square in the constellation Pegasus. The four stars in the Square -- Scheat, Markab, Algenib, and Alpheratz -- are faint enough that city light pollution might wash them out. Try viewing them from a park or from outside of the city.

Their names, by the way, show that they represent different parts of the winged horse. Scheat is "the upper arm", Markab is "the saddle", Algenib is either "the wing" or "the side", and Alpheratz is "the navel".