This consists of the brightest stars in Cygnus, Lyra, and Aquila. To use the map, put the direction you are facing at the bottom. This star map shows the Houston sky at 10 pm CDT on September 1, 9 pm CDT on September 15, and 8 pm CDT on September 30. Thus, we see our Milky Way as a blur in the background with stars like Deneb (and Vega, Altair, Arcturus, etc.) in the foreground. The entire Milky Way, however, is 100,000 light years across, making Deneb one of our relative ‘neighbors’. For example, Deneb is about 1600 light years away, which is quite far. ![]() Indeed, our galaxy is so big that only stars relatively close to us appear as distinct stars the rest of our galaxy blurs out and appears as the Milky Way band across our sky. In fact, every star we ever see in the sky with the naked eye is in our Milky Way. ![]() This band is brightest near the galactic center and extends from there right through the Summer Triangle. If you are far enough from bright city lights, you might look for the Milky Way band. The Great Square of Pegasus rises in the east, heralding the coming autumn. From the Big Dipper’s handle, ‘arc to Arcturus’ in the west. When you face between these two constellations, you face the direction of the galactic center, which all stars in the Milky Way orbit. Scorpius, the Scorpion, is in the southwest, with the ‘teapot’ of Sagittarius to his left. This consists of Deneb, Vega, and Altair, the brightest stars in Cygnus, Lyra, and Aquila respectively. The Summer Triangle is high overhead at dusk. Mars remains lost in the Sun’s glare this month and is thus not visible. Saturn, to Jupiter’s right, is somewhat dimmer but still outshines all of the stars near it ![]() Jupiter is brighter than all the stars we ever see at night. Look for Jupiter and Saturn rising in the east southeast as night falls and setting in the west southwest as day begins to break. Jupiter and Saturn were up all night long last month, leaving them well placed for evening observing this fall. Venus outshines everything except the Sun and the Moon, so it is unmistakable low in the west southwest at dusk. Venus remains in the evening sky this month.
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