01/27/2012 – Ephemeris – The constellation Canis Major
Ephemeris for Friday, January 27th. The sun will rise at 8:07. It’ll be up for 9 hours and 36 minutes, setting at 5:43. The moon, 3 days before first quarter, will set at 10:49 this evening.
What kind of a hunter would the constellation Orion be without his trusty hunting dogs. The larger of the dogs is Canis Major which can be found if you extend Orion’s belt stars down to the left. There in the south southeast will appear the brightest night time star Sirius the Dog Star. It is in the heart of the dog, which appears to be begging. Well it’s tilted funny. Other than that it’s a pretty good representation of a dog as a stick figure. The name Sirius doesn’t mean Dog Star, but means Dazzling One due to its great brightness. It outshines all other night stars, only to be out shown by the planets Venus, Jupiter and occasionally Mars. Binoculars will show a nice little star cluster a short ways below Sirius known as M41.
* Times, as always are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.
Addendum
Orion and his Hunting Dogs. Created using Stellarium.
