Diagram caption: The constellation Sagitta with its bright stars and surrounding constellations. Sagitta is surrounded by (going clockwise from the top): Vulpecula, Hercules, Aquila and Delphinus. Sagitta is a relatively small constellation.

Sagitta is a northern constellation and thus the whole constellation is visible at some point in the year throughout the northern hemisphere. The whole constellation is also visible to equatorial and temperate regions of the southern hemisphere. Sagitta is best viewed in the evening in the northern hemisphere summer and southern hemisphere winter.

The globular cluster M71 lies in Sagitta. It is marked here with a yellow circle with a plus sign superimposed on it.

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

Related glossary terms: Apparent Magnitude , Celestial Coordinates , Constellation , Declination , Globular Cluster , Right Ascension (RA)
Categories: Naked Eye Astronomy

Diagram license: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) icons