Constellation
Auriga
Auriga is the northern constellation of the charioteer, a bright pentagon of stars holding golden Capella, the goat star.
The myth
Auriga is the charioteer, often tied to the mythical inventor of the four-horse chariot. In the old pictures he is shown, a little absurdly, carrying a goat and her kids on his shoulder. That goat is the bright star Capella, whose name means the little she-goat.
How to find it
Look high overhead on winter evenings in the northern hemisphere for a large, bright pentagon of stars, anchored by brilliant Capella. Capella is one of the most northern of all the bright stars, so for much of the northern world it circles overhead and never sets. Close beside Capella is a small, narrow triangle of fainter stars called the Kids, the goat’s young ones.
A shared star
The bottom corner of the pentagon is a star called Elnath, from the Arabic for the butting one, because it also marks the tip of one of the horns of Taurus. Astronomers once counted it in both constellations. When the official boundaries were drawn in 1930 it was given to Taurus, but your eye still joins it to the charioteer.
What to look for with binoculars
The Milky Way runs through Auriga, so a sweep with binoculars on a dark winter night shows several soft star clusters strung across the pentagon. The charioteer also lies opposite the centre of our galaxy, so when you look here you are looking out toward the thin edge of the Milky Way rather than into its crowded middle.
A star you can find in your chart
By Hali’s 2026 star positions Capella sits at 22 degrees of the sign Gemini, and the Sun passes it around 13 June each year. Ptolemy gave the bright stars of the charioteer the nature of Mars and Mercury, and fixed star astrologers read a planet on Capella as curious, inventive and fond of learning.
Common confusions
Auriga is not a zodiac constellation, though it borders Taurus and Gemini and its stars sit at zodiac degrees by longitude. The Sun, Moon and planets pass below it, never through it. Capella is also often mistaken for a planet when it rises low and twinkles in many colours, which is simply its light passing through a thick slice of air.
Questions
Why does Capella never set for some people?
Because it is so far north. By Hali's star positions Capella never dips below the horizon from anywhere north of about 44 degrees north, which takes in most of Europe, Canada and the northern United States.
Sources: Standard references and Greek myth. Hali star positions for 2026.