This is the time of year when you can almost feel the seasons moving along from one to the other. Not only is the daily temperature dropping, visual reminders are everywhere. Leaves are changing colour and dropping from the trees. Crops are being harvested and chrysanthemums are the last of the garden's flowers in bloom. Frost is not uncommon. There are signs in the skies as well as the autumn constellations march across the sky. And if you are willing to get up very early, you can get a preview of the star studded winter sky.

      Constellations are generally associated with the seasons in which they appear in the evening sky - particularly the  eastern evening sky, when they're just rising and ready to shine all night long. For example, Leo is well known as a spring constellation, Taurus an autumn constellation and Orion the king of winter.  To avid sky watchers, the seasonal constellations are as familiar as the road signs of our home town.  Winter skies offer a host of bright stars, seemingly made brighter by the crisp cold nights they decorate

      The  constellations that we see change during the year as Earth moves around the Sun. This might be a hard thing to imagine, but try this exercise to see what we mean.

      Place a lamp in the middle of a table (use a table you can walk all the way around but don't trip over the lamp cord!) Stand against the table and face the lamp. You will be the Earth and the lamp is our imaginary Sun. The edge of the table is our "orbit." When you are looking at the lamp, your face would be in daylight. Now, without moving to either side, face the opposite direction. Now your face is in night and your "stars" will be whatever objects are in front of you. Now, move around to another side of the table. Face the Sun and then turn to face your "night sky." There will be different "stars" in front of you, right?

      Of course in reality, the Earth has about 365 day and nights as it moves once around the Sun, but you should get the idea why we see different stars at different times of the year. If you wanted your experiment to be realistic, you'd have to turn completely around 365 times as your slowly moved around the table one time (and we didn't think you'd really want to try that!)

      The transition of seasonal constellations is slow. The stars rise about four minutes earlier each night. This time of year, the concentrations of winter are rising late into the night and are in a good position to view around 4:30 am. The hours  before  dawn are already crisp and nippy at this time of year. If you plan to get up and view the stars, be sure to wrap up warmly! Look to your southern skies for the winter preview.

 
    Just before dawn, Taurus is almost directly overhead. It's marked by a V-shaped pattern of stars. Bright red Aldebaran stands at one point of the V.Just above the V is a small cluster of six stars. These are the Pleiades, or the "seven sisters." Just about every culture has a myth or story about the Pleiades.

      Orion is just to the southeast of Taurus; look for a large rectangle of bright stars with a short  diagonal line of three bright stars near its center. And in the south-southeast, look for Sirius the brightest star in our night sky.

      A couple of months from now, these bright constellations will rise during mid evening. By January, they'll rise around sunset and claim winter's evening sky as their own.