16/11/22, 18:58 Starwatch: the bright stars of the Summer Triangle | Astronomy | The Guardian

Starwatch
Starwatch: the bright stars of the Summer Triangle
The brightest stars of three constellations form one of the
northern hemisphere’s most familiar asterisms

Stuart Clark
@DrStuClark
Sun 29 Jul 2018 21.30 BST

Deneb
Vega
Cygnus
Lyra
Hercules
Pegasus

Delphinus

Altair
Aquila
Equuleus
Ophiuchus

Source: @DrStuClark

One of the most obvious star patterns in the night sky at the moment is not a
constellation at all. Instead, the Summer Triangle is made up of the three brightest
stars from three constellations: Deneb from Cygnus, Altair from Aquila and Vega
from Lyra. In the UK, British astronomer Patrick Moore popularised the term
Summer Triangle in the latter half of the 20th century but its use dates back to at
least 1913. Before that, the asterism was marked on 19th century star charts. All
three stars give out blue-white light, indicating surface temperatures of roughly
2500-3500K hotter than the Sun’s 5800K. Whereas Altair and Vega are just a few
times larger than the Sun, Deneb is fully 200 times the diameter of the Sun and
pumping out around 200,000 times the Sun’s luminosity. Vega is interesting
because it is surrounded by a disc of matter, which may indicate the formation of a
planetary system.

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