Pisces the Fish (I prefer not to use "fishes" as the plural form) is a fairly dim constellation hanging like a skewed "V" mid-November evenings in the eastern sky. The most pronounced part of this constellation is a distinct circlet of mainly 4th- and 5th-magnitude stars in its eastern realms, just south of the middle of the Great Square of Pegasus. The brightest star in this pattern, known as the "circlet of Pisces," is 3.7-magnitude Gamma Piscium, an old K-type star, cooler and larger than the Sun (by 11 times) and situated about 130 light-years away.

The constellation's brightest member is Alrescha (also spelled "Al Rischa," meaning the cord). If you have a 4-inch (101-millimeter) telescope and crank it up to a fairly high magnification, you may be able to see Alrescha's companion, only 1.8 arcseconds away within the glare of the primary. Observers can't seem to agree on the color contrast between these two stars -- some say yellow and blue, others green and blue -- so it's a bit of a mystery.

The American astronomer and popularizer, Robert Burnham, Jr., notes in his Celestial Handbook that one observer, C. E. Barns, in 1929, simply noted some "weird coloring" with this pair. What do you see?

Also note that the "first point of Aries" (the place in the sky where the Sun crosses the celestial equator heading north, marking the first day of spring) is in this constellation, just southeast of the circlet. Two thousand years ago, it was indeed in Aries, but precession -- the "wobble" in Earth's rotational axis -- has since relocated this point in the sky.

Adjust your horoscopes accordingly.