Start Here · Star Almanack

{% capture manuscript %} # Start Here *A reader’s guide to the Star Almanack* The sky has a calendar of its own. As the year turns, familiar stars return to the evening sky, different constellations come into view, and the Moon and planets move among them. The Star Almanack connects those changes with dates you can look up. You can begin with **today**, to discover what is well placed for evening viewing now, or with **your birthday**, to explore a part of the year you already know by heart. Each route below takes you from a date to a season, then to objects, stories, and charts. You do not need to know the symbols or the astronomy before you begin. Your **observing window** includes the zodiac month containing your chosen date, plus the month before and the month after. That three-zodiac-month range gives you ample viewing to explore. The calendar’s best-visibility dates help you choose targets within it. ## Explore from today, step by step 1. **Open the calendar converter.** Go to the [Calendar](/star-almanack/calendar.html). Select today’s **Month** and enter today’s **Day**. 2. **Find today’s week.** Tap **Find the weeks**, then open the result for the current year. The converter links to the available 2025–2027 Almanack calendars. The page you open covers one Monday-through-Sunday week. 3. **Find today in the table.** Locate today’s civil date and look across to its zodiac day. Note the zodiac month’s name. If the symbols are unfamiliar, use **English** or **Mixed Learner** in the calendar’s notation controls. 4. **Open the larger seasonal view.** Use the **Current season** link near the top of the weekly page. Find today’s date again and browse the surrounding weeks. This gives you the wider sky of this time of year. 5. **Explore your observing window.** Browse the zodiac month containing today, together with the preceding and following zodiac months. Look for stars, constellations, and deep-sky objects listed at their best-visibility dates. Use the neighboring season links if your window extends beyond the page. 6. **Choose one object and follow it.** Pick an entry that interests you and open its linked material. Read the Sky Note or article, then look at its finder chart. Use the [Chart Library](/star-almanack/chart-library/) if you want a wider view of the surrounding constellations. 7. **Make it an evening’s observation.** Check the Moon, the equipment guidance, and whether the object is accessible from your latitude and horizon. Use [Ephemera](/star-almanack/ephemera.html) for location-specific calculations. Take the chart outside and begin with a familiar landmark. Once you have found one object, return to the same observing window and choose another. You have a range of evenings and targets to enjoy. ## Explore from your birthday, step by step Your birthday is first a season: a place in Earth’s yearly journey around the Sun. Think of the time of year it belongs to—the daylight, the weather, and the evening sky. The stars of that season give you a whole sky to explore around a familiar date. 1. **Enter your birthday.** Open the [Calendar](/star-almanack/calendar.html), select your birth **Month**, enter your birth **Day**, and tap **Find the weeks**. You do not need to enter your birth year. 2. **Choose a year to explore.** Open your birthday week in one of the available 2025–2027 calendars. Choose this year to explore this year’s birthday sky, or another published year to compare. 3. **Find your birthday’s place in the year.** Locate your civil date in the weekly table and read its zodiac day. Use **English** or **Mixed Learner** if you would like the zodiac name spelled out. 4. **Explore your birthday season.** Follow the **Current season** link near the top of the week. Find your birthday on that seasonal page and browse the stars and other objects listed around it. If your birthday falls close to an equinox or solstice, check the date’s season-and-day label and use the neighboring season link if needed: a week can cross a season boundary. 5. **Widen the view to your observing window.** Include the zodiac month containing your birthday, plus the month before and the month after. Browse the best-visibility entries across those three zodiac months. These give you ample evening viewing around your birthday; you can explore beyond the entries on the exact day. 6. **Get to know an object.** Follow an entry to its story and chart. Learn its constellation, identify a familiar pattern nearby, and consider what equipment you would use to find it. Which objects would you like to look for when your birthday season comes around? 7. **Compare another year.** Return to the converter and open your birthday in a different published year. The seasonal stars return around the same time of year, while the Moon, planets, and dated events change. Notice what returns and what is different. You are exploring the sky around your birthday in the year you choose. Whenever you want to see what is well placed now, follow the **today** route above. The Almanack names seasons using the Northern Hemisphere convention, with boundaries at the equinoxes and solstices. Southern Hemisphere readers should reverse the local seasonal association. For either route, what you can actually see depends on your latitude, horizon, weather, light pollution, and moonlight. The previous and next week buttons move through the calendar; the season links take you to the surrounding seasons. “Current week” in that navigation means the week you have opened. ## Find your way around | If you want to… | Start with… | |---|---| | Find the week containing a date | [Calendar converter](/star-almanack/calendar.html) | | Browse a longer observing period | [Seasonal calendars](/almanack/seasons/) | | Learn what an object is and why it is interesting | Sky Notes within a weekly page | | Learn constellation names, meanings, and histories | [Constellations](/star-almanack/constellations/) | | Recognize a pattern or find a target | [Chart Library](/star-almanack/chart-library/) | | Calculate positions and rise/set times for a place | [Ephemera](/star-almanack/ephemera.html) | | Understand eclipse types and explore individual events | [Eclipses](/almanack/eclipses/) | | Plan for an annual meteor shower | [Meteor Showers](/almanack/meteors/) | | Read the ideas and stories behind the Almanack | [Text and Stories](/star-almanack/reading.html) | | Understand the observing approach or calculations | [Method](/star-almanack/method.html) and [Validation](/star-almanack/validation.html) | ## Weeks, years, and seasons **The ISO week is the basic calendar unit.** It runs Monday through Sunday. In `2026-W20`, 2026 is the ISO week-numbering year and W20 is week 20. Near New Year, the ISO year can differ from the civil year printed beside the date. A year and a season are ways to browse those weeks. A seasonal page stacks the complete ISO weeks that cover the season, so its first and last weeks can contain days from the neighboring season. The season-and-day label tells you where each date belongs. Seasons follow the equinoxes and solstices. The labels use the Northern Hemisphere convention: March begins Spring, June Summer, September Autumn, and December Winter. Southern Hemisphere readers should reverse the seasonal weather association. Read the dates shown on the page, especially for winter, which crosses New Year. The year buttons open full-year calendars. The previous, current, and next season buttons are centered on the period you are viewing; they are useful for moving between the weekly detail and the larger seasonal picture. ## Reading the calendar Each row connects a civil date with a zodiac day and the events assigned to that date. Entries can include solar ingresses, lunar phases, equinoxes, solstices, meteor activity, and best-visibility dates for stars or deep-sky objects. Separate boxes within an event cell distinguish separate entries. Follow an object’s link for its accompanying material. An empty cell means no tracked entry is assigned there; it does not mean there is nothing to observe. **Zodiac signs and constellations are different.** The zodiac-day column uses twelve equal 30° divisions of the tropical zodiac. Aries begins at the March equinox. The official constellations are unequal regions of the sky. A zodiac date is a calendar coordinate, not a claim that the Sun is inside the constellation of the same name. **Read the time label.** UTC is a common worldwide clock; converting to your local time can change the civil date. Local apparent solar time follows the actual Sun and differs from your clock time. Use the stated time convention rather than assuming every time is local. ## What “best visibility” means For fixed objects, the Almanack’s evening landmark is culmination: crossing the local meridian at approximately **9 PM local apparent solar time**. This gives an annual date around which an object is conveniently placed for evening observing. It is a planning landmark. You can often observe the object for weeks or months around that date. The date alone does not establish that it rises at your latitude, clears your horizon, or is visible through city lights. A southern object may remain below a northern observer’s horizon. For the practical question “Can I see it here tonight?”, combine the calendar with the object’s chart, your location, and the conditions outside. ## Symbols, names, and brightness Use the notation controls wherever they appear: - **Greek/Symbols** gives compact astronomical notation. - **English** spells out the corresponding names. - **Mixed Learner** pairs symbols with words to help you learn them. Controls can belong to an individual section or chart. If another section still uses a different notation, look for its own controls. The [Front Matter](/star-almanack/front-matter.html) provides a longer symbol key and explanatory background. A designation such as **α Cyg** identifies a star by its Bayer letter and constellation abbreviation: alpha in Cygnus. A proper name, such as Deneb, may appear alongside it. Abbreviations in star designations serve a different purpose from the full constellation names used in prose. The magnitude scale runs backward: smaller numbers mean brighter objects. A variable-star marker identifies a star whose brightness changes. Calendar entries simplify brightness information; charts can show finer precision to help compare neighboring stars. Missing a printed magnitude does not mean the object has no measured brightness. Eye, binocular, and telescope markings indicate observing aids. They are guidance: sky darkness and the object’s size and surface brightness matter as well as its listed magnitude. ## Sky Notes and finder charts Sky Notes explain the objects and events associated with a week. Read the short introduction, then open the linked article for its fuller account, finder material, and sources. A finder chart shows relationships among a target and recognizable sky landmarks. Begin with the widest view, identify a familiar pattern, then use an inset or closer view if provided. Chart labels and captions tell you what area or view is being shown. A **Planet Finder** places planets among reference stars. It is useful for understanding their celestial arrangement. For your local horizon or rise/set circumstances, use the location-specific calculations in Ephemera. A planet’s presence on a chart does not by itself mean it is above your horizon or observable in darkness. ## Three ways to use the atlases - **[Panoramic Sky Atlas](/star-almanack/chart-library/panoramic/):** start wide to understand a large region of the sky and the relationships between constellations. - **[Constellation Atlas](/star-almanack/chart-library/constellations/):** examine a constellation’s stars, adopted figure, and surrounding boundaries. - **[Asterism Atlas](/star-almanack/chart-library/asterisms/):** learn familiar patterns that can lie within one constellation or cross several. A constellation is an officially bounded sky region. An asterism is a recognizable star pattern. A constellation’s stick figure is a drawing convention, distinct from its boundary. The [Constellations collection](/star-almanack/constellations/) tells the names, meanings, and histories of all 88 constellations. The atlas is a separate chart collection. Serpens has one history article and two chart portraits, Caput and Cauda. The [Front Matter explanation](/star-almanack/front-matter.html) discusses Serpens, Mensa, and Microscopium. ## Eclipses, meteors, and the Moon Use the [Eclipse collection](/almanack/eclipses/) for the different kinds of eclipse and the individual event pages. An eclipse date does not mean the event is visible everywhere; check its visibility information and timing. For solar observing, follow the collection’s eye-safety guidance before looking toward the Sun. Use [Meteor Showers](/almanack/meteors/) to learn the radiant and the expected conditions around a shower’s peak. A reference rate is not a promise of how many meteors you will see: moonlight, darkness, radiant height, and observing time affect the result. The calendar’s principal lunar phases help you follow the Moon and plan around moonlight. A phase time is an astronomical instant; the Moon’s appearance and position from your location still depend on when you look. ## Read further The [Text and Stories collection](/star-almanack/reading.html) preserves the essays and manuscripts behind the Almanack. The [Front Matter](/star-almanack/front-matter.html) collects the opening material and conventions. Some retained manuscripts describe earlier stages of the project; this page is the guide to navigating the current website. For the reasoning behind the design, read the [Observer-First Method](/star-almanack/method.html). For checks and calculation background, visit [Validation](/star-almanack/validation.html). Ready to begin? [Find your week](/star-almanack/calendar.html), or [explore the seasons](/almanack/seasons/). {% endcapture %}