The Night Sky in June 2012 The other two members of the Triangle, Vega and Altair, are respectively 52 and 10 times intrinsically brighter than the Sun and respectively 16 and four times bigger. These numbers give some idea how, of all the bright-shining stars, what a comparatively faint and small star the Sun is. The Triangle, which shines from dusk to dawn throughout the summer months in the northern hemisphere, has been used by mankind for thousands of years. Its appearance taught early farmers when to plan for agriculture, and today it provides helpful pointers to locate such interesting objects as the great Andromeda galaxy and Polaris the Northern Star. It is a superb object to look at through binoculars because it straddles the Milky Way across five constellations. It is most revealing to examine it with low-powered glasses and see the wealth of objects that lie within it. Just behind Deneb, in the constellation of Cygnus the Swan, lies the Great Rift, that mysterious split in the Milky Way that breaks up the dense clouds of stars and dust into two parallel streams. And just north of the Rift and slightly east of Deneb is the reddish North American Nebula (NGC 7000), famous for being shaped like the south-eastern American continent. Further south in Cygnus, just east of the Rift, is the beautiful Veil Nebula (NGC 6960), also called the Witch's Broom, a great cloud of gas created by a supernova of long ago. In the centre of it is the bright foreground star 52 Cygni which is not part of the Veil, it being seven times closer. Of two particularly beautiful objects inside the Triangle, one is the star Albireo, or Beta Cygni, a pair of blue and yellow double stars that orbit one another every 75,000 years. The other is the faint globular cluster M71. Often mistaken for a comet, it is an interesting challenge for binoculars. Of the planets, Saturn is a fine sight in Virgo until about 1 am, its rings beginning to open. Briefly at sunrise on June 6, there is a rare sight invisible from Britain for another 105 years: Venus crossing the Sun. Although Venus is only one per cent of the Sun's size, its great proximity to Earth will make it seem much larger than that. Seeing it will be like watching an alien planet crossing another star. Every precaution should be taken when looking at the Sun, lest permanent blindness result. Please send comments to adrianspage@safe-mail.net Adrian Berry's Book Eureka: The Book of Scientific Anecdotes can be downloaded from Kindle The new Daily Telegraph Night Sky Chart is available for 9.95 plus 99p p&p. To order, please call Telegraph Books on 0844 871 1514, or visit www.books.telegraph.co.uk, or send a cheque to Telegraph Books, Orders Dept, PO Box 582, Norwich NR7 0GB.