![]() ![]() Nudge the edge of the strip into sharp focus with a pencil point as you hold the eyepiece up to a light and look through it. As Bob recommends, put a homemade occulting bar across your eyepiece's field stop: a tiny strip of aluminum foil held with a bit of tape, with one edge at the center of the field. The Pup is east-northeast of the Dog Star and 10 magnitudes fainter: one ten-thousandth as bright. You'll want at least an 8- to 12-inch scope, a night of really, really excellent seeing (keep checking night after night), Sirius standing at its very highest near the meridian (in early evening now), and the Sirius-B hunting tips in Bob King's article Sirius B – A New Pup in My Life. They will remain at essentially this separation for the next few years before they start closing up again. ■ Want to try for Sirius B, the famous white dwarf? This year Sirius A and B are at their widest apparent separation in their 50-year orbit: 11.3 arcseconds apart. ![]() And in the northern sky three dim red dwarfs are closer than Sirius, but these require binoculars or a telescope. That makes Sirius the closest naked-eye object for us after Saturn (or yes, maybe Uranus if your sky is very dark).Īlpha Centauri is the actual closest star at 4.3 light-years, but you have to be farther south to see it. Sirius is not only the brightest star in our sky after the Sun, it's also the closest naked-eye star after the sun, at 8.6 light-years, for those of us at mid-northern latitudes. ![]() Now the approach of March pushes Orion westward and brings his dog, Canis Major sporting Sirius on his chest, onto the meridian. ■ February has been Orion's month to stand at his highest in the south in early evening. Betelgeuse is above Sirius by about two fists at arm's length. ■ Spot the big, bright, equilateral Winter Triangle in the south-southeast. The Moon occults Mars for parts of the Arctic. Watch their separation change hour by hour. ■ The Moon shines just a degree or two from Mars tonight, as shown above. (The Moon is shown here three times its actual apparent size.) A first-quarter Moon in late February is always in Taurus. This evening the Moon shines between Aldebaran and the Pleiades, as shown below. ■ First-quarter Moon (exactly first quarter at 3:06 a.m. But soon it dominates the low eastern sky. That's the spot on the horizon to watch.Ītmospheric extinction keeps Arcturus rather dim when it rises. Follow the curve of its handle down and around to the lower right by a little more than a Dipper-length. To see where to watch for it to rise, find the Big Dipper as soon as the stars come out it's high in the northeast. It rises above the east-northeast horizon around 9 or 10 p.m. ![]() ■ It's not spring for another 3½ weeks, but the Spring Star Arcturus seems eager to thrust itself into view. They are Ursa Major the Big Bear in the northeast (with the Big Dipper as its brightest part), Leo the Lion in the east, dim Hydra the Sea Serpent in the southeast, Canis Minor the Little Dog higher in the south-southeast, and bright Canis Major the Big Dog in the south. They're all seen in profile with their noses pointed up and their feet (if any) to the right. ■ After dinnertime at this time of year, five carnivore constellations rise upright in a row from the northeast to south, as if out of hibernation. ![]()
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