Orion - a signpost in the sky

Orion is an excellent constellation to use as a starting point to find some interesting objects in the sky. Draw an imaginary line through the three stars that make up the belt; now follow this line downwards (bottom left) and you should come to an extremely bright star – in fact it’s the brightest star in the sky and it’s name is Sirius or “the dog star”, it is in the constellation of The Great Hunting Dog. Not only is Sirius very bright, but it is also one of our closest stars.

If you follow your imaginary line upwards (top right) you will come across another very bright star, this time it’s Aldeberan in the constellation of Taurus, the Bull. If you continue the imaginary line you will come across what looks like at first a small cloud, if you look carefully you should be able to see six (or if you have a really dark sky) seven stars, this is an open star cluster called the Pleiades or the Seven Sisters – with a pair of binoculars you should be able to see 20 or so stars.

Another imaginary line left (eastwards) across the two shoulder stars indicates the direction of Procyon in the Small Hunting Dog, and a final line from Rigel through Betelgeuse points to Castor and Pollux the two main stars of the constellation of Gemini or the Twins.

You should now be able to find 7 of the brightest stars in the sky and one of the most impressive open star clusters.

Have fun!

Image credit: Wikipedia