The Summer Triangle: where and when to see it

The Summer Triangle is three bright stars from three constellations: Vega in Lyra (magnitude 0.0), Altair in Aquila (0.8) and Deneb in Cygnus (1.3). In October 2026 at 40° north, the Summer Triangle is nearly overhead as the sky gets dark (7:20 p.m. on the 15th) and stays up until about 11:55 p.m.; the last evening it shows is around January 1, 2027, at 5:50 p.m. in the west. It returns before dawn from February 6, 2027 and is up before midnight again from May 25, 2027. Below: when all three stars are up in a dark sky, month by month, and a calculator for any place, date and hour.

Is the Summer Triangle up tonight?

Enter your latitude and longitude (west is negative), the time zone your clock is on that day, a date and an hour of that night. “Up” here means all three stars are at least 20° above the horizon while the sky is dark (the Sun more than 12° below the horizon).

The date starts at today; without JavaScript, the example above is New York on October 15, 2026 at 8:00 p.m.. Directions are where to face; “up” is the height above the horizon.

Month by month (40° north)

Each row is the night of the 15th, at 40° north on the meridian of the Eastern time zone (75° west), by Eastern clock time with daylight saving time from March to early November. “Up” is when all three stars are at least 20° high in a dark sky; “highest” is when the middle of the triangle stands highest in that window. Times are to 5 minutes.

When is the Summer Triangle visible?

At 40° north the Summer Triangle first appears before dawn around February 6, 2027, is up before midnight from May 25 and is last seen in the evening around January 1, 2028. So yes, you can see the Summer Triangle in winter: in early-winter evenings, in the west, and again before dawn from February. In the table, “dawn from” is the first morning it is up before dawn, “evening from” the first night it is up before midnight.

The table is for the meridian of a time zone (75° west for Eastern time). For each degree you are west of it, the same sky comes about 4 minutes later by the clock.

Where to look through the night

Like the Sun, the triangle rises in the east, crosses the south and sets in the west. On August 15, 2027 at 40° north, look for the middle of the triangle southeast, 74° up, at 10:00 p.m.; southwest, 76° up, at midnight; and west, 54° up, at 2:00 a.m. It is highest at about 11:05 p.m., nearly overhead (82° up). In July and August it passes almost straight overhead at 40° north.

The three stars

Vega is the brightest of the three and Deneb, in Cygnus, the faintest. The Summer Triangle is an asterism, a pattern of bright stars, not a constellation of its own.

Where Angel Step fits

Angel Step reads only your step count from Apple Health and shows it as one number on a living sky. It does not track stars; that is this page's job. A warm, clear night is a good time for a walk: look up.

Sources

• NASA Night Sky Network — “Summer Triangle Corner: Vega” and “Summer Triangle Corner: Deneb”, the stars of the asterism. NASA
• US Naval Observatory — celestial navigation data, used to check this page's star positions. USNO
• Hipparcos new reduction (van Leeuwen 2007) and the Yale Bright Star Catalog — star positions and brightness. VizieR
• IAU Working Group on Star Names — the names of the stars. IAU
• National Astronomical Observatory of Japan — the names and abbreviations of the 88 constellations. NAOJ
• 15 U.S.C. § 260a — daylight saving time, used for the clock times. Cornell LII

Updated 13 October 2026