"It is well known," as Mma Ramotswe would say, that following the two stars at the outer edge of the Big Dipper will lead up to the Pole Star in the Little Dipper and down to a pattern of stars we call Leo the Lion.  The sky contains other pointer stars, including a line of three stars prominent in our early evening skies.

Orion the Hunter is already climbing in the southeast as the sky darkens and by 9:30 or 10 pm will stand high in the south.  The three stars of Orion's belt are almost equally spaced and nearly equal in brightness.  They are blue supergiants, each shining more than 10,000 times brighter than our sun.

The belt stars are even brighter than Sirius but because they are more than a hundred times farther away, it is Sirius and not the belt stars that appears as the brightest star in our night sky.  It is pure coincidence that the belt stars point down and to the left directly toward the brilliant spark of Sirius.

Sirius is so bright it is often mistaken for a UFO.  That impression is exaggerated for those of us at northern latitudes when we see it close to the horizon shimmering in heat from village chimneys.

Following the belt stars up and to the right brings us first to an orange star called Aldebaran.  This is the brightest star in the constellation of Taurus the Bull and, in the V-shaped face of the Bull, Aldebaran glares like a bloodshot eye.

Follow the line of the belt stars beyond Aldebaran to a cluster of blue-white stars.  These are the Pleiades, clustered on the Bull's shoulder like a flock of curious birds.

A visitor currently sits between Aldebaran and the Pleiades.  The planet Jupiter blazes away with a cold silvery light, shining more brightly than Sirius.  This month an even brighter visitor will join the group on the evening of the 21st when the moon snuggles up to Jupiter.

But of course, the moon slips past Jupiter every month.  "Everybody knows that!" as the Number One Lady Detective would say.


PUBLIC OBSERVING occurs, weather permitting, on the Dartmouth College hill behind Wilder Hall Friday evenings, 8 to 10 pm.  Since the observing sessions can be canceled because of bad weather, equipment failure, or orders from Ork, it's prudent to phone the observing number [603-646-9100] before the session.


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