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One of the most prominent asterisms of the autumn sky is the great square of Pegasus which consists of four widely separated stars forming an almost perfect square. Pegasus' easily discernible shape helped save the life of the North Pole explorer Donald MacMillan, by enabling him to navigate through the arctic snow. Although there are about 30 dim stars that can be seen without binoculars within the square of Pegasus, except on a very dark night that area appears very barren, particularly when compared to the Milky Way. One of the square's stars belongs to the constellation Andromeda, while the other three are of part of the constellation Pegasus.
This constellation appeared to both the Phoenicians and the Egyptians as a boat. According to some Jewish legends, the constellation is the might hunter Nimrod's horse, while we know it as Pegasus from Greek mythology. Pegasus sprung from the body of Medusa when Perseus cut off her head. The winged horse was allowed to stay in Zeus' stables on Mount Olympus and also was given the honor of carrying Zeus' thunder and lightning. Nevertheless, when Pegasus helped the young hero, Bellerophon, kill the Chimer (a beast that was a lion in font, serpent behind and goat in the middle) Zeus was greatly angered. He sent a fly to bit Pegasus, who as a result of the bit jumped into the sky.
Pegasus contains two double stars, epsilon and pi Pegasi. Pegasus' brightest stars, with a magnitude of 2.5 are alpha Pegasi or Markab, which is the Arabic word for saddle.