This year it is easy to find: it is located above the unmissable planet Jupiter. This is the brightest point of light in the night sky.
The striking square forms the torso of the horse. The star at the bottom right is followed by a long, flat triangle that represents the neck and head. The forelegs are two chains of fainter stars starting at the top right.
So for us the horse is lying on its back. For observers far in the southern hemisphere, on the other hand, Pegasus gallops upright across the northern sky.
Andromeda’s bright chain of stars can be thought of as its hind legs. For us, it joins the autumn square at the top left.
According to legend, Pegasus is the child of the sea god Poseidon and Medusa. The horse sprang from Medusa’s torso following Perseus cut off her snake-haired head. It flew away from the mother’s body to the Helikon Mountains. When his hoof touched the ground when he landed, the Hippocrene spring, sacred to the muses, gushed forth there.
In ancient China, the square was separated into two figures. The right side represented Shi, one of the ruler’s many palaces – the stars on the left the wall of the Imperial Library.
The prominent square now dominates the evening sky and flies away to the southwest following midnight.
