Cast your gaze eastward during the night right now, and you will be in for a celestial treat with the Summer Triangle. Made up of three stars—Vega, Altair and Deneb—the Summer Triangle dominates the night sky and offers amateur astronomers many more interesting sites within its boundaries during the summer season.

The three stars that make up the Summer Triangle are also the brightest stars in their respective constellations. Marking the northwest corner of the triangle, Vega is the brightest of the three stars, casting a bluish-white glow in the sky, and is part of the constellation Lyra the Harp. It appears twice as bright as the next star, yellow-white Altair of the constellation Aquila the Eagle. The dimmest-looking star Deneb takes up the northeast corner of the Triangle and is the tail of the constellation Cygnus the swan.

Though Vega appears to be the brightest star to us from our vantage point, it actually pales in comparison to Deneb, one of the biggest supergiants that we know of. Deneb’s location is about 1,467 light-years from Earth and is estimated to be over 60,000 times more luminous than the sun. Deneb appears to us as a relatively faint star compared to the other two because its light takes nearly 15 centuries to reach us.

Probably the most impressive view to be seen in a dark night sky is the Milky Way cutting through the Summer Triangle between Altair and Vega. While every star that we can see is part of the Milky Way galaxy, including our own star, the term Milky Way generally refers to the cross-sectional white strip formed by a vast number of stars collecting close together.

To look for this particular asterism—a star pattern that is not a constellation—point a pair of binoculars eastward at nightfall, overhead at around midnight and to the west toward dawn. Some people think of the Summer Triangle more as a “V.” The Summer Triangle can also serve as an astral calendar, marking the different seasons through the year. In middle to late June, the stars of the Summer Triangle light up the eastern sky during twilight, telling observers that it’s the change of seasons as spring turns into summer. When the stars of the Summer Triangle are either high in the south or directly overhead at dusk and early evening, that indicates that summer has transitioned into fall.