Whether you call it the Winter Circle or Hexagon, it’s a big circular pattern of stars in the night sky. Rigel, Aldebaran, Capella, Procyon, Sirius, Castor and Pollux are the bright stars that make up the large, circular pattern. From Rigel, draw an imaginary line through the.
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- Orion (constellation)
- Winter Circle, or Hexagon, made of bright stars | Favorite Star Patterns | EarthSky
Intermediate What do I need to do to become an astronomer? Beginner What's the difference between astronomy and astrology? Beginner Why is looking out into space the same as looking back in time? Beginner What color is each planet? Intermediate When was the last time all of the planets were aligned?
Beginner How far is each planet from Earth? Intermediate How do you measure the distance between Earth and the Sun? Intermediate At what speed does the Earth move around the Sun? Beginner What is the difference between the "Doppler" redshift and the "gravitational" or "cosmological" redshift? Advanced How does the position of Moonrise and Moonset change? Intermediate How does the location of sunrise and sunset change throughout the year?
Advanced What is the difference between a "star" and a "sun"? Intermediate How far is each planet from Earth? Beginner What is the difference between a "star" and a "sun"? Beginner Can artificial gravity be created in space? Beginner Why do airplanes take longer to fly West than East?
Intermediate How does the position of Moonrise and Moonset change? What color is each planet?
Intermediate Why are the Moon and Sun sometimes orange or red? Beginner When was the last time all of the planets were aligned?
Why brighter stars at this time of year?
Beginner At what speed does the Earth move around the Sun? Intermediate Why do airplanes take longer to fly West than East? What's going to happen on December 21st ? In artistic renderings, the surrounding constellations are sometimes related to Orion: He is sometimes depicted hunting Lepus the hare.
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He sometimes is depicted to have a lion's hide in his hand. There are alternative ways to visualise Orion. From the Southern Hemisphere , Orion is oriented south-upward, and the belt and sword are sometimes called the saucepan or pot in Australia and New Zealand. The appellation Driekoningen the Three Kings is also often found in 17th- and 18th-century Dutch star charts and seaman's guides.
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Even traditional depictions of Orion have varied greatly. Cicero drew Orion in a similar fashion to the modern depiction. The Hunter held an unidentified animal skin aloft in his right hand; his hand was represented by Omicron 2 Orionis and the skin was represented by the 5 stars designated Pi Orionis. Kappa and Beta Orionis represented his left and right knees, while Eta and Lambda Leporis were his left and right feet, respectively. As in the modern depiction, Delta, Epsilon, and Zeta represented his belt.
His left shoulder was represented by Alpha Orionis, and Mu Orionis made up his left arm. Lambda Orionis was his head and Gamma, his right shoulder. The depiction of Hyginus was similar to that of Cicero, though the two differed in a few important areas. Further Western European and Arabic depictions have followed these two models. Orion is bordered by Taurus to the northwest, Eridanus to the southwest, Lepus to the south, Monoceros to the east, and Gemini to the northeast.
Orion (constellation)
Covering square degrees, Orion ranks twenty-sixth of the 88 constellations in size. Orion is most visible in the evening sky from January to March, [29] winter in the Northern Hemisphere, and summer in the Southern Hemisphere. In the period May—July summer in the Northern Hemisphere, winter in the Southern Hemisphere , Orion is in the daytime sky and thus not visible at most latitudes.
However, for much of Antarctica in the Southern Hemisphere's winter months, the Sun is below the horizon even at midday. Stars and thus Orion are then visible at twilight for a few hours around local noon, low in the North. In the Southern Hemisphere's summer months, when Orion is normally visible in the night sky, the constellation is actually not visible in Antarctica because the sun does not set at that time of year south of the Antarctic Circle. In countries close to the equator e.
Kenya, Indonesia, Colombia, Ecuador , Orion appears overhead in December around midnight and in the February evening sky. Orion is very useful as an aid to locating other stars. Additionally, Rigel is part of the Winter Circle asterism. Sirius and Procyon , which may be located from Orion by following imaginary lines see map , also are points in both the Winter Triangle and the Circle. Orion's seven brightest stars form a distinctive hourglass-shaped asterism, or pattern, in the night sky.
Four stars—Rigel, Betelgeuse, Bellatrix and Saiph—form a large roughly rectangular shape, in the centre of which lie the three stars of Orion's Belt — Alnitak , Alnilam and Mintaka. Descending from the 'belt' is a smaller line of three stars, Orion's Sword the middle of which is in fact not a star but the Orion Nebula , also known as the hunter's sword.
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Many of the stars are luminous hot blue supergiants, with the stars of the belt and sword forming the Orion OB1 Association. Standing out by its red hue, Betelgeuse may nevertheless be a runaway member of the same group. Iota Orionis is also called Nair al-Saif , Arabic for "the brightest in the sword". Orion's Belt or The Belt of Orion is an asterism within the constellation.
Alnitak is around light years away from earth and is , times more luminous than the Sun ; much of its radiation is in the ultraviolet range, which the human eye cannot see. It is 90, times more luminous than the Sun and is a double star: In the Northern Hemisphere, Orion's Belt is best visible in the night sky during the month of January around 9: Just southwest of Alnitak lies Sigma Orionis , a multiple star system composed of five stars that have a combined apparent magnitude of 3.
Southwest of Mintaka lies the quadruple star Eta Orionis. Three stars compose a small triangle that marks the head. Phi-1 and Phi-2 Orionis make up the base. Also nearby is the very young star FU Orionis. Stretching north from Betelgeuse are the stars that make up Orion's club. Mu Orionis marks the elbow, Nu and Xi mark the handle of the club, and Chi 1 and Chi 2 mark the end of the club.
Just east of Chi 1 is the Mira-type variable red giant U Orionis. Around 20 October each year the Orionid meteor shower Orionids reaches its peak. Coming from the border with the constellation Gemini as many as 20 meteors per hour can be seen. The shower's parent body is Halley's Comet. This is a spectacular object that can be clearly identified with the naked eye as something other than a star. Using binoculars, its clouds of nascent stars, luminous gas, and dust can be observed.
The Trapezium cluster has many newborn stars, including several brown dwarfs , all of which are at an approximate distance of 1, light-years. Named for the four bright stars that form a trapezoid , it is largely illuminated by the brightest stars, which are only a few hundred thousand years old.
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