06/27/2022 – Ephemeris – Finding the Summer Triangle

This is Ephemeris for Monday, June 27th. Today the Sun will be up for 15 hours and 33 minutes, setting at 9:32, and it will rise tomorrow at 5:59. The Moon, 1 day before new, will rise at 5:13 tomorrow morning.

We’re nearly a week into summer, and the asterism or informal constellation called the Summer Triangle can be seen rising in the east as it gets dark. Highest of the three bright stars is Vega in the constellation Lyra the harp, whose body is seen in a narrow parallelogram nearby. The second star of the triangle is Deneb, in Cygnus the swan, lower and left of Vega, It appears dimmer than Vega because it is by far the most distant of the three. The third star of the Summer Triangle is seen farther below and a right of Vega. It is Altair in Aquila the eagle, and the closest. Altair is 16.5 light years away, Vega is 27 light years, while Deneb may be a whopping 2,600 light years away. One light year is 6 trillion miles (9 trillion kilometers).

The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EDT, UT – 4 hours). They may be different for your location.

Addendum

The Summer Triangle finder animation showing first the unlabeled sky, Then the Summer Triangle with the stars labeled, then the constellations of those stars. Created using Stellarium and GIMP.