This time of the year you can see more bright stars in the sky at onetimetan at any other time of the year. The winter skies are truly beautiful to behold even in this cold weather.  Bundling up and braving the cold will reward you with numerous bright stars as well as planets.

Sirius is by far the brightest star in the current sky. It can be found in thesouthern sky around 8PM, about halfway to overhead. Also called the Dog Star, it resides in the constellation Canis Major, the Greater Dog. The name Sirius is Greek and it means  the Trembling One.  It was known as trembling because the star  twinkles  so visible. It is a very bright star and never gets very high in the sky and therefore is more prone to twinkle than stars seen higher up. In ancient Egypt, Sitius was called the Nile Star, and was worshiped because its predawn sky appearance in late June during the period around 3000 BC, heralded the beginning of the annual flooding of the Nile River. This flooding rejuvenated the soil of the Nile River Valley and was an all important event.

The constellation of Orion is close to Sirius. It is higher in the sky and alittle more to the south-southwest. The roots of the name Orion seem to be connected with an ancient Mesopotamian god called Uru-anna, who was known as the  Light of Heaven.  Four bright stars make up a rectangle that outlines Orion the Hunter. Starting at the upper left is the bright reddish star Betelgeuse. To the right of Betelgeuse is Bellatrix. The bottom right star of the rectangle is the bright blue Rigel and the lower left star is Saiph.  Bisecting the rectangle are three bright stars that make up the belt of Orion. The most interesting star is Betelgeuse, an enormous supergiant red star. The star is an elderly star and is in a phase where it expands and contracts, varying between 700 and 1000 times the diameter of our Sun! If Betelgeuse were to replace our Sun, the surface of this giant star when at its maximum, would extend beyond the orbit of Jupiter! It would completely engulf the Earth!

High in the northern sky at this time, nearly overhead is the giant yellowstar Capella, in the constellation Auriga the Charioteer. The three belt stars in Orion point upwards to the bright star Aldebaran in the constellation Taurus the Bull.

It is not only bright stars that grace our night sky however, there are bright planets which put on a show of their own. Venus is the most obvious. Often mistakenly called the  wishing star  this planet is hard to miss in the western sky at sunset. The planet continues it's apparent climb away from the Sun, each night it can be seen a little higher in the sky as the distance between Venus and the Sun increase.

Jupiter is higher in the sky than Venus, but the distance between the twobright planets will decrease. On February 17th the slender crescent moonwill join the show, appearing just below Venus after sunset. But the real show is on February 23 the two pass within .1 degrees of each other! You won't want to miss the chance to see this. The last time Venus and Jupiter appeared this close together in the sky was in 1990, but that was in the predawn sky. This time it's after sunset and more appealing to view! If you have a camera and would like to try your hand at capturing this celestial event, it's not hard to do. Use a slow film like ISO 100 with ordinary lenses and a tripod. Shoot at 1/15 at f/2.5 Most importantly, take a range of settings so that you'll be sure to get at least one good picture.

See a map of Winter Skies

Constellations

The Solar System