Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

This is Ephemeris for Thursday, February 11th. Today the Sun will be up for 10 hours and 17 minutes, setting at 6:06, and it will rise tomorrow at 7:47. The Moon is new today, and won’t be visible.

I usually talk about the Winter Circle of bright stars, but some other astronomers talk about the Winter Triangle. The stars involved are Betelgeuse in the hunter Orion, Sirius in Canis Major, Orion’s large hunting dog, and Procyon in Canis Minor, his other small hunting dog. These three stars enclose a rather blank piece of sky with the faint Milky Way running through it and the almost invisible constellation of Monoceros the unicorn. The Summer Triangle has three bright stars with no other close competition. The Winter Triangle has four other bright stars near it. Any three of these would make a nice triangle. One of these constellations Canis Minor is tiny, with Procyon and one other star. It makes me think of a dachshund, or maybe, if I’m hungry, a hot dog.

The event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Winter Triangle finder animation. It shows the star field, named first magnitude stars, then their constellations, then the Winter Triangle and constellations of the three stars. Click on the image to enlarge. Created using Stellarium and GIMP.