Even though it’s now spring, Orion and the rest of the winter constellations are still shining in the southwestern sky.
There’s the big guy himself with three bright stars in a row that make up the hermit hunter’s belt. Orion’s brightest star is Rigel, marking Orion’s left knee, and Betelgeuse at the other corner, marking Orion’s armpit.
On the southern and western side of Orion’s gang of winter shiners are his hunting dogs; the constellations Canis Major and Canis Minor. Canis Major kind of looks like a dog standing on his hind legs, with the very bright Sirius marking the big dog’s snout.
Sirius is the brightest star in the night sky. It’s so bright because it’s relatively close to Earth, at least as far as stars go. Sirius is about 50 trillion miles away.
Canis Minor is a joke of a constellation. All there is to it is basically two stars next to each other, a bright one and a dim one. The bright one is Procyon, 11.5 light years away, and is the next brightest star you see to the upper left of Sirius. The dimmer star to the upper right of Procyon is Gomeisa, and that is Canis Minor.
Orion and the winter dogs are not long for our evening sky, because one big kitty cat is chasing them. The best constellation of the spring skies, Leo the Lion, is on the prowl, climbing higher in the southeast evening in pursuit of the mighty hunter and the pooches of winter. Leo is one of the few constellations that really resembles what it’s supposed to be. The right side looks just like a backward question mark. It’s not hard to imagine that as the profile of the chest and head of a mighty lion. To the lower left of the backward question mark are three stars that form a distinct triangle that allegedly outlines the tail and hind quarters of the lion.
Leo has a little help this spring from the very bright planet Jupiter, named after the Roman king of the gods.
Jupiter is the brightest star-like object in the eastern half of the evening sky. The largest planet in our solar system is a wonderful telescope target, even if you have a smaller scope. You should easily resolve the disk of the planet with your telescope, and maybe some of the darker cloud bands that stripe the largest planet in our solar system. You’ll see up to four of its larger “Galilean” moons that circle the great planet in periods of 2 to 17 days. Make sure you take long continuous views of Jupiter and its moons, or any other celestial target for that matter. A good three to five minute view is best so your eye can adjust to the light level in your eyepiece. The longer you look, the more detail you should see.
Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and professional broadcast meteorologist.
What to watch for
Jupiter may be dominating the southeastern evening sky, but an even brighter planet, Venus, pops out of the evening twilight in the low western sky. Sunday night, the new crescent moon will be parked just to the left of Venus. Pray for clear skies.
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