The Summer Triangle, consisting of the prominent stars Vega, Altair and Deneb is a much-used guidepost to navigating the Summer Sky. But another landmark collection of stars, while less well known, is at least equally as useful to the Starhopper in the Winter. It is the Winter Circle.

The Winter Circle consists of easily six recognizable stars of Magnitude 1.5 to +0.9, which are also the main elements in six important constellations. Using these six stars /constellations as a guide, a host of other Astronomical Highlights can be located with relative ease.

The six are:

The starting point I like to use is Rigel, in the Constellation Orion. To find Orion in the Winter Sky, face East about 9:00pm and look about halfway up the sky, a little towards the South. Orion and the three distinctive stars that form Orion's Belt are among the most recognizable patterns in our terrestrial Cosmos. To find Rigel, look for the bright, bluish star about 10° below the right-hand or upper star in Orion's Belt. (10° is about the width of a clenched fist held at arm's length). Rigel is the bright star with a bluish hue.

Once Rigel is located, look down and around to the Southeast to find the brightest star in the Northern Hemisphere Sky: Sirius, the 'Dog' Star. Sirius is the anchor for the constellation Canis Major, the BIG DOG. Now swing your gaze 'up and around ' to the northeast. There we find Procyon, the main star in Canis Minor, the Little Dog. It is a yellow star located more or less all by itself. To continue our journey, move your view around to the North to find Pollux and the other Gemini twin, Castor. During January of this year (2004), Gemini has a spectacular neighbor lying at its feet: Saturn, en route to its closest proximity to earth in past 30 years! Pollux and Castor line up in such a way as to point to Capella, the brightest star in the constellation of Auriga, the Charioteer. Now we have found five parts of our circle (or six if you count Castor). To complete the circle; hang a 90° right turn at Capella and look down that line to the south until you run into a rather bright, reddish star. This is Aldebaran, the Eye of Taurus the Bull. And there you have your Winter Circle!

While finding the stars and constellation in the Circle is a nifty accomplishment in itself, it is just a springboard for some of the truly special sights of our entire universe. And next time we'll go into some detail on just what these sights may be.