Tonight's Sky: February 2013

 February 23
Orion. The Greek poet Homer described it as a giant hunter, armed with a club. This constellation is among the easiest to recognize. Betelgeuse, one of Orion's shoulders, is a red super giant star about 650 times bigger than the sun. Rigel, one of Orion's knees, is a triple star system made up of two smaller stars orbiting a blue super giant. Orion's belt is easy to spot, it is made up of three starts: Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka (from left to right). Orion nebula, M42, is the brightest diffuse gas cloud in the night sky and marks the hunter's sword, hanging from his belt. Embedded inside the Orion nebula is the Trapezium, it is what cause the surrounding gas to glow. Trapezium was discovered by Galileo on 1617, he sketched three of the stars (A, C, D). The fourth component (B) was identified by several observers in 1673.With our ORION Skyquest xt8 Orion nebula looks like this: http://www.celestronimages.com/data/media/5/m42-trapezium-cluster-3.png
That is the middle group of the sword.

Tonight's Sky: February 2013