Diagram caption: The constellation Equuleus with its brighter stars and surrounding constellations. Equuleus is surrounded by (going clockwise from the top): Delphinus, Aquarius and Pegasus. It is a relatively small constellation with few bright stars.

Equuleus lies just north of the celestial equator and thus the whole constellation is visible at some point in the year to all but the most antarctic regions. Equuleus is best viewed in the evening in the early northern hemisphere autumn and early southern hemisphere spring.

The y-axis of this diagram is in degrees of declination with north as up and the x-axis is in hours of right ascension with east to the left. The sizes of the stars marked here relate to the star's apparent magnitude, a measure of its apparent brightness. The larger dots represent brighter stars. The Greek letters mark the brightest stars in the constellation. These are ranked by brightness with the brightest star being labeled alpha, the second brightest beta, etc., although this ordering is not always followed exactly. The dotted boundary lines mark the IAU's boundaries of the constellations and the solid green lines mark one of the common forms used to represent the figures of the constellations. Neither the constellation boundaries, nor the lines joining the stars appear on the sky.

Diagram credit: Adapted by the IAU Office of Astronomy for Education from the original by the IAU and Sky & Telescope. Credit Link

Diagram translation status: Not yet approved by a reviewer
Related glossary terms: Apparent Magnitude , Aquarius , Declination , Right Ascension (RA) , الإحداثيات السماوية , مجموعة نجمية او حشد نجمى
Categories: Naked Eye Astronomy

Diagram license: Creative Commons نَسب المُصنَّف 4.0 دولي (CC BY 4.0) Creative Commons نَسب المُصنَّف 4.0 دولي (CC BY 4.0) icons