•The coming month or so is the best time to see this star. So go outside now - and learn to keep company with the loneliest star.

• On this autumn night, at about 8 to 9 p.m., look for a solitary star that's peeking out at you just above the southeast horizon. See it? No other bright star sits so low in the southeast at this time of year. You should be able to see it, even in the glare of tonight's big and bright waxing gibbous moon. For these next few nights, the moon shines more or less between the star Fomalhaut and the Great Square of Pegasus.
• Fomalhaut is a bright white star. It dances close the southern horizon until the wee hours after midnight on these early autumn nights.
• Fomalhaut is sometimes called the

loneliest star because it is the brightest star in an otherwise empty-looking part of the sky. It is also sometimes called the Lonely One, or the Solitary One, or sometimes the Autumn Star. Depending on whose list you believe, Fomalhaut is either the 17th or the 18th brightest star in the sky. Roughly translated from Arabic, the star's name means mouth of the fish or whale. Its constellation, Piscis Austrinus, represents the Southern Fish.
• Besides being one of the brighter stars in the night sky, Fomalhaut has interest to professional astronomers. In recent years, this star has been found to have a protoplanetary disk. This is a ring of dust that surrounds Fomalhaut and a companion star within one light-year. This dust ring surrounding these stars might someday form into planets. Perhaps planets are forming there now. Just think of that as you gaze upon Fomalhaut, the lonely autumn star!