Pegasus the Winged Horse, which sprung from the spilled blood of the Medusa, is usually depicted as a half horse though, if you like, you can borrow Andromeda as the horse's back legs. We see Pegasus tonight high in the eastern sky around 8 o'clock.

The brightest star of the Square of Pegasus, Alpheratz, sits in the northeast corner and is actually Andromeda's alpha star. Scheat, the square's second-brightest star in the northwest corner, is Pegasus' brightest star.

Confusingly, however, Scheat is listed as Beta Pegasi. Alpha Pegasi, known as Markab, sits in the southwest corner and is plotted as the constellation's alpha star. (It is only slightly fainter than Scheat.)

Finally, in the southeast corner we have Algenib, or Gamma Pegasi.Lying west of the Square is Enif, a magnitude-2.3 star marking the winged-horse's nose. A fine globular cluster for small telescopes, M 15, lies about 4 degrees to the north-northwest. It bothers me that this noble beast appears to have no tail. Toward that "end," therefore, I suggest conscripting a few stars from Pisces and Andromeda to confabulate a wispy tail. These are plotted on today's Spacewatch map.

Also shown is 51 Pegasi, the star around which astronomers discovered their first extrasolar planet. It lies just west of the Great Square, between Scheat and Markab.