Even since I learned the constellations, their star patterns and locations back in 1964, I have always grouped small Aries (representing a ram) and even smaller Triangulum (representing, er...uh, a triangle) together as a combo deal. They're just east of the dismally dim Zodiac constellation Pisces, although the two aren't endowed with bright stars, either. They also tend to get overshadowed by the brilliant display of stars to their east, with Taurus (including the nearby beautiful cluster the Pleiades, visible to the naked eye as a smudge in the night sky) and spectacular Orion drawing the star gazer's attention away from them. Triangulum does have a deep space object, M33, which is a spiral galaxy visible without binoculars, but only when the sky is very dark. The three main stars in Aries also form a triangle, duh...I don't know why they didn't just graft what is Triangulum onto the Ram and make one more substantial star group, but I didn't live way back in ancient times when they came up with these designations. As a kid watching the night sky, I always regarded making out Triangulum and Aries as a sort of visual test...this task is made easier when they pass nearly overhead this time of the year around 9 pm Standard Time, making them less susceptible to city lights. Triangulum has a southern counterpart constellation, dubbed "Triangulum Australe"...I've actually seen star maps with it represented by a crude quadrilateral of connected stars...really??? And I can't finish this article without mentioning what you probably already know: Aries is a Zodiac constellation, so the elliptic, the imaginary celestial "line" representing the plane of our solar system through while the sun, moon, and planets seem to travel, passes through it...
Next month I'll pick another constellation (or two) to discuss...
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