How to find Draco
A long, winding dragon that coils between the Big and Little Dippers — circumpolar and ever-present.
Eltanin — the dragon's bright eye.
Draco is a sprawling, faint constellation that winds its way around the north celestial pole, threading between the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper. From mid-northern latitudes it's circumpolar, so some part of the dragon is always up.
Its most recognisable feature is the compact quadrilateral of the dragon's head, marked by the brighter star Eltanin.
A former pole star
Because Earth's axis slowly wobbles over millennia, the pole star changes. Around 3000 BC the star Thuban in Draco was the pole star, aligned with passages in the Egyptian pyramids. Polaris will eventually hand the role on again.
How to find it
- Locate the area between the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper
- Trace the long, faint chain of Draco's body winding between them under a dark sky
- The dragon's head is a small quadrilateral near Hercules and Lyra
Deep-sky highlights
- Cat's Eye Nebula (NGC 6543) — a bright, intricate planetary nebula for telescopes
- The Tadpole Galaxy and other faint galaxies for large apertures
Stella shows exactly when Draco is highest from your location tonight — and whether the sky is worth it.
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