Auriga's stars: Capella and how many more?

Event Date: May 27th
Time: 9:00 PM


Brief

Yesterday when showing Capella low towards the horizon near Perseus, I mentioned how we can see it a little better in the evening for awhile.  Specifically, because Capella is about halfway between the celestial equator and the north celestial pole, it spends a little over 17 hours above the horizon.  Of those 17, the star is most easily visible for about 15 of them seen from mid-northern latitudes, with the other 2+ having it low to the horizon.  The celestial grid, which I have shown with the Summer Triangle stars near the opposite part of the sky, has two stars at about the same declination, with Deneb almost exactly that of Capella.  Vega is the other, about 6º south of these other two.
Capella is shown below, with the three other bright-enough stars that make up its "diamond" shape.  I kept Venus in the image as well, about a week away from falling deep into the Sun's glare.  For Auriga, why haven't I included the stick figure you may wonder?  See below in the detailed.

click on image to enlarge: courtesy of Starry Night Pro Plus, version 6.4.3, by Simulation Curriculum Corp.

Detailed

  For a long time, Auriga's stick figure was made up of a 5th star, being El Nath; I mentioned this star earlier in the spring as the northern claw of Taurus.  The 5 stars together naturally gave Auriga a lopsided-pentagon shape.  When the International Astronomical Union finally decided to give El Nath to Taurus only (similar to how Pegasus lost a star to Andromeda mentioned a few weeks ago), Auriga was transformed from a pentagon to more of a "diamond" shape, which the labeled stars outline above.*  We will reach a day next month when Capella will be visible for the same number of minutes in the morning and evening.  At our latitude, this was common with aforementioned Deneb early in the year, and other dimmer stars at similar declinations have it seen also this way.  The more north a viewer is, as the grid reminds us, the more stars we see as near--or completely--circumpolar above the horizon.  With Capella, it is seen circumpolar with an unobstructed horizon when viewed at the wester U.S./Canadian border: 49º.  As a fun sighting, I have seen the star at 50º in southern Alberta; the atmospheric pollution gives Capella a red appearance when seen at its lowest in altitude.  With enough pollution, the attractive red-green, Christmas-like twinkle is not yet visible.  At 38º N., we see Capella this way in the northeast evening sky starting in late October-early November, depending on which hour we look.

*The Starry Night Software which I use daily, maintained the pentagon shape however, for--I am guessing--to show the original shape; hence my not including the stick figure.