01/25/11 – Ephemeris – The constellation Lepus the hare

Tuesday, January 25th.  The sun will rise at 8:08.  It’ll be up for 9 hours and 32 minutes, setting at 5:41.   The moon, 1 day before last quarter, will rise at 1:25 tomorrow morning.

Orion, the central winter constellation is seen in the south southeast at 9 p.m. He is a hunter, but is preoccupied in defending himself from the charge of Taurus the bull to the upper right.  At Orion’s feet, and unnoticed by him is the small constellation of Lepus the hare.  It’s very hard to see a whole rabbit in its eight dim stars: however, I do see a rabbit’s head, ears and shoulders.  A misshapen box is the head and face of this critter facing to the left.  His ears extend upwards from the upper right star of the box, and the bend forward a bit.  Two stars to the right of the box and a bit farther apart show the front part of the body.   The free computer program Stellarium shows a different orientation to the hare.  You might check it out at Stellarium.org.

* Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.  They may be different for your location.

 

Lepus and a preoccupied Orion. Image from Stellarium.