How to find constellations: start with three you can't miss

Nobody learns 88 constellations at once. People who know the sky learned three or four bright patterns first and then hopped from those to their neighbours. That’s the method here.

Pick an anchor for the season

• Winter evenings: Orion. Three stars in a short straight row (the belt), with a bright orange star above (Betelgeuse) and a blue-white one below (Rigel). Follow the belt down and to the left and you hit Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky.
• Spring: the Big Dipper. Seven stars shaped like a pan, part of Ursa Major. The two stars at the end of the pan point to Polaris, the North Star.
• Summer: the Summer Triangle. Three bright stars high overhead: Vega, Deneb and Altair. On a dark night the Milky Way runs right through it.

From the Southern Hemisphere, swap the Big Dipper for the Southern Cross.

Use the phone to confirm, then put it down

Hold up Sky Map, find the anchor, then lower the phone and find it again with your eyes. That second step is the one that teaches you. After two or three nights you won’t need the phone for that pattern.

Must-have at midnight

Really cool sky map that highlights the constellation at night so you can find them. I used it with my girlfriend and we were debating and guessing on constellation’s position !

★★★★★ App Store review, France, 9 October 2025, bertaudarthur · App Store

Hop to the next one

From Orion’s belt, go up and right to Aldebaran in Taurus. From the Big Dipper’s handle, “arc to Arcturus”. The app’s constellation lines help here because you can see the shape before your eyes pick it out.

When you can’t see the pattern

In a bright city, you may only see the top three or four stars of a constellation. That’s normal. Our older post on city stargazing covers it, and so does stargazing with light pollution.

More detail in the earlier guide: how to find constellations.