Pisces
What is Pisces?
Constellations· Autumn evenings (N) · a wide V wrapping the Great Square. Two fishes tied together by a cord. The stars are faint, but the vernal equinox now lies here: each 20 March the Sun crosses the celestial equator inside Pisces. The small ring of stars called the Circlet, below the Great Square, is the way in.
📍 Visible from where you are right now — computed in your browser
bearing · altitude · rise time · best time tonight
Where Pisces is in your sky right now: https://nowsky.org/solar/sky?sel=con:Pisces — location and time set automatically, no login.
Stars of the figure
| Star | Magnitude |
|---|---|
| Kullat Nunu | 3.6 |
| Gamma Piscium | 3.7 |
| Alrescha | 3.8 |
The 3 brightest of the 10 stars used in the figure (10 lines). Lower magnitude means brighter.
Constellation basics
| Season | autumn evenings, October–December |
|---|---|
| Brightest star | Eta Piscium (3.6) |
| How to find | a long V hugging the south and east sides of the Great Square |
| Area rank | 14th of 88 |
Figures are representative approximations. Source: compiled from NASA and IAU public data.
Frequently asked
- When can I see Pisces?
- autumn evenings, October–December.
- How do I find Pisces?
- a long V hugging the south and east sides of the Great Square.
- What is the brightest star in Pisces?
- Kullat Nunu, magnitude 3.6.
- Where is Pisces in the sky right now?
- Open the sky view for your location and time and it shows the position in the sky right now.
The Phantom Galaxy — M74 in Pisces
Near the eastern fish of Pisces lies M74, a spiral galaxy seen face-on. At 32 million light-years its arms open out in textbook fashion, but the light is spread so widely that its surface brightness is among the lowest in the Messier catalogue. Hence the nickname Phantom Galaxy: in a small telescope it is easy to miss even when you know it is there.
When Webb imaged it in infrared in 2022 the dust filaments between the arms and the hollow at the centre stood out, and combined with Hubble's visible-light image it produced a picture showing the galaxy's skeleton and flesh together. Pisces has no bright stars and is easily passed over, but inside it sits one of the standard specimens for the study of galaxy structure.
The constellation in depth
Pisces tells of Aphrodite and her son Eros, who turned into fishes and leapt into a river to escape the monster Typhon. They tied their tails together with a cord so as not to lose each other; the knot is the star Alrescha. Babylonian records already listed a constellation called the Tails here. The two fishes swim in different directions, one westward below Pegasus and one northward toward Andromeda, joined by the long cord.
Around the first century BC precession carried the vernal equinox from Aries into Pisces, and around AD 2600 it will pass on into Aquarius. The constellation contains Van Maanen's Star, a white dwarf only 14 light-years away, and M74, a beautiful face-on spiral that is so faint it needs a large telescope. Because the Sun sits here at the March equinox, the constellation is invisible in spring and best seen on autumn nights.
On autumn evenings find the small ring of stars, the Circlet, just south of the Great Square — that is the western fish. From there a long line of faint stars runs east, bends at Alrescha and climbs beneath Andromeda to the eastern fish. A dark sky helps; set the Sky view to a November night and trace the lines.
Related
Figures are representative approximations. Simulated positions use J2000 mean elements.