You may have noticed that the autumn sky has fewer bright stars and distinctive constellations than the other three seasons. Even the Big Dipper appears to be missing from the evening sky. The reason for the absence of bright stars now is because we are looking directly out of the plain of the Milky Way Galaxy, and the Big Dipper isn't really missing. You just need to know where to look for it.

The dipper is a pattern of seven stars located in Ursa Major, the Great Bear. Ursa Major is a circumpolar constellation, which means it's always in the sky rotating counterclockwise around Polaris the "north star." At 8 p.m. the Big Dipper can be found scraping the northern horizon. You will find the dipper standing on its handle by 3 a.m., and by sunrise the dipper will be high in the northeastern sky.

Sky watchers still have bright Jupiter to gaze at this autumn. It's positioned high in the southern sky at 8 p.m.

That's Fascinating, where Mark Roth spotlights the odd and the interesting in everyday life, is featured exclusively in the Opinion section on PG+, a members-only web site from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.