The great flying horse of the sky
One of the classic constellations of the Butler night sky is Pegasus, the flying horse. The heavenly horsey is currently soaring in the southeastern early evening sky.
The traditional interpretation of Pegasus is a horse flying upside down with puny little wings. If you can see it that way, more power to you. I see a majestic horse flying right side up with a huge wingspan.
With apologies to purists, in order to do this, I had to “borrow” some stars from the constellation Andromeda. My unofficial version of Pegasus is what you see on Mobile gas station signs. Pegasus is rescuing the lovely Princess Andromeda from a giant ravenous sea monster.
As soon as it’s dark enough, look directly above the eastern horizon for a giant diamond of four fairly bright stars that outline the torso of Pegasus, otherwise known as the “Square of Pegasus.” They’re easy to spot since they are the brightest stars in that area of the sky.
The star at the top of the diamond is the star Scheat, the base of the flying horse’s neck. Look above Scheat for two fainter stars that outline the rest of the neck and another relatively faint star to the lower right of the neck that marks the flying horse's snout.
The horse has a multi-jointed front leg that extends upward in a curved line. To see it, start at Markab, on the right-hand corner of the square of Pegasus. From there, look for a curved line of slightly fainter stars that extends up to the upper right. There’s a moderately bright star, Enif, that marks Pegasus’s hoof.
On the left corner of the square of Pegasus is the star Alpheratz. You can easily see a curved line of three bright stars extending to the lower left of Alpheratz. That outlines the mighty wings of Pegasus. Above the wing stars, there’s another nearly parallel line of fainter stars. That outlines Andromeda, the Princess, who’s hitched to the rear end of the horse. In the traditional view of the upside-down flying Pegasus, both the bright and faint curved lines of stars attached to Alpheratz make up the constellation Andromeda.
No matter how you see the constellations Pegasus and Andromeda, the saga of how the lovely princess found herself tied to a flying horse’s rear end is part of the great Greek mythological story involving Perseus, Cassiopeia, Pegasus and the lovely Princess Andromeda.
Perseus, son of Zeus, king of the gods, was flying back from a mission when he flew over a distressing scene. The giant ugly sea monster Cetus was closing in on a beach where Princess Andromeda was chained to a rock by her own parents, Cassiopeia and Cepheus, the king and queen of ancient Ethiopia. They were forced to offer their daughter as a sacrifice to Cetus to keep their entire kingdom from being ravaged by the sea monster. Perseus had to save this damsel in distress, but he had to be smart about it.
Perseus’ mission was to cut off the head of Medusa, a terrible monster that was so ugly that anyone who looked at it turned to stone. Entire communities were being stoned! It had to be stopped. To keep from being stoned himself, he managed to lop off Medusa’s head while looking the other way. That took a lot of skill!
As quick-thinking Perseus approached the sea monster, he whipped out Medusa's head and waved it at Cetus just as the beast was about to make lunch out of Princess Andromeda. That’s all it took! Cetus sank into the depths, never to be seen again!
But that’s not all. Blood from the severed head of Medusa hit the ocean waves and magically produced Pegasus, a beautiful white-winged horse. The magical horse instinctively flew down to the boulder where Andromeda was, chewed off the chains, and then flew the Princess up to Perseus, where it was love at first sight. Perseus and Andromeda were soon married.
Astronomically, one of the best celestial gems in the traditional constellation Andromeda is the Andromeda Galaxy, otherwise known as Messier object 31. Scan that area of the heavens just above the princess with your binoculars or a small telescope and look for a ghostly fuzzy patch. If you’re out in the countryside and really have dark skies you may see it with your naked eye.
That fuzzy little patch is our Milky Way galaxy’s next-door neighbor, over 2 million light-years away with just 1 light year equaling almost 6 trillion miles! That small fuzzy patch is the home of possibly a trillion stars, and many, many, many more planets!
There’s no guarantee about how bright they’ll be, but we have two comets available this week in the early evening sky. Comet Lemmon (C/2025 A6 Lemmon) will be hanging out this week around the bright constellations Bootes and Corona Borealis in the low west-northwest sky after evening twilight, setting around 9:30 p.m. See the attached diagram to help you find it, but better yet, use a good free stargazing app like Sky Guide or Celestron Sky Portal to help you pinpoint it.
This dirty cosmic snowball, spewing gas and dust, is making its closest approach to Earth this week — about 56 million miles away. Predicting comet brightness is extremely difficult but there is a chance you may be able to see it with the naked eye; otherwise, you should be able to spot it with binoculars. You could also snap a picture with your smartphone in its general direction. You just might be able to detect Comet Lemmon in your photo.
Meanwhile, Comet SWAN (C/2025 R2 SWAN) is spending early evening a little higher up in the lower third of the southern sky, just below the constellation Aquila the Eagle. See the diagram. It’s also making its closest approach to Earth, less than 25 million miles away. Like Lemmon, you’ll probably need binoculars to see Comet SWAN unless you're in a super dark countryside.
Good Luck!
Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and professional broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis/St. Paul. He is also the author of “Stars: a Month by Month Tour of the Constellations,” published by Adventure Publications and available at bookstores and at adventurepublications.net. Contact him at mikewlynch@comcast.net.
