While the first day of winter is marked on the calendar, my first night of winter is marked in the sky.
My winter came before the solstice on a crisp night when even the air had sharp edges. I turned out the house lights and walked out on the deck, accepting the chill as fair trade for clear skies and Orion rising out of the southeast.
Like the Big Dipper, once you’ve found Orion, you can easily find it again. It will reach its highest point in the night sky in late January.
Technically, it was visible rising in the east before dawn last August, but for practical purposes, it’s a winter constellation that rises about 8-9 p.m. and sets before sunrise.
If constellation naming happened in the late 20th century, we’d probably be searching for Michael Jordan, the Space Shuttle and Mickey Mouse. But Greek mythology gave us Orion the Hunter, complete with club, bow and arrow, and a sword dangling from his belt. He’s hunting Taurus the Bull in the winter sky.
Orion is big — very big — much easier to spot than, say, Cassiopeia. Homer called Orion the giant, aptly enough; the Irish saw the constellation as the armed king.
Once you can trace its figure, Orion’s star-studded belt becomes the key to finding it again. It’s the only set of three blue-white stars, evenly spaced with similar brightness and about 1,500 light years away.
The belt points towards Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, in the constellation Canis Major (Large Dog, or Big Dog), to the southeast (our left) of Orion, one of two dogs that accompanied the hunter.
Even the Greek myths have varying versions of Orion’s story, but they usually include the gods and goddesses, the hunter, the rabbit and bull, dogs, and a scorpion, most of which are in the sky.
From east to west, the three belt stars are Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintake (the faintest of the three). In Arabic, they mean the girdle, belt of pearls and belt, respectively, so there’s no doubt about what we’re seeing.
Once the belt is in sight, other points on the hunter fall into place. Betelgeuse is in Orion’s right shoulder (on our left). Taking the Arabic experts at their word, Betelgeuse translates to the Armpit of the Central One.
The giant red star is the 10th brightest star and several hundred light years away. Our relatives a few million years from now can watch it explode into a supernova and die.
Betelgeuse is so large that it has five companion stars in orbit around it. Who knows where they will go after the Big Pop.
Bellatrix (left shoulder), Rigel (raised left foot) and Saiph (right foot or, more realistically, the right knee, depending on which culture draws the constellation) are the other three that anchor Orion.
Rigel is the seventh-brightest star in the sky; Bellatrix is Latin for female warrior.
Orion’s three-star sword hangs from his belt. Although the middle light appears to be a star, the reddish glow is actually the spectacular Orion Nebula.
Yes, we can see nebulas (mind-bendingly large clouds of dust and gas lit by nearby stars) with our naked eye, and this one is the star of many wonderful photographs provided by the Hubble Space Telescope.
Orion lies across the Celestial Equator, which means it can be seen from almost all parts of the southern and northern hemispheres.
Certainly from my deck, and yours.
Columnist Sharon Wootton can be reached at 360-468-3964 or www.songandword.com.
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