I love star gazing. It is one of the most fascinating things to do. If you want to have your own personal light show once the sun sets, look for the star Sirius. This is the brightest star in the night sky. Sirius is also called the Dog Star because of its prominence in the Canis Majoris constellation. Intrinsically, Sirius is over 20 times brighter than our Sun and over twice as massive. It is located 8.7 light years from Earth.
So how do you find it? First, you need to locate Orion's belt. This shouldn't be too hard: it's the three stars in a row. Once you locate the belt, follow it to locate Sirius by moving your eyes to the left, as shown in the figure below. Follow the three belt stars of Orion 20 degrees southeast towards the brightest star you can see. 20 degrees is about two times your fist at arm’s length.
You'll know it when you see it: it is a very large, bright star and it twinkles all the colors of the rainbow. Yes, all stars twinkle, but this is extremely obvious because of its brightness. Sirius is a blue star but appears to change color rapidly due to the Earth’s atmosphere. Turbulence in the atmosphere causes the star’s light to be “bounced” all over the place. The light of the star is made up of many different colors which all “bounce” around differently. As a result, normally blue Sirius can appear to rapidly switch between many different colors when it is close to the horizon because its light is passing through more atmosphere than usual.
Happy gazing!
So how do you find it? First, you need to locate Orion's belt. This shouldn't be too hard: it's the three stars in a row. Once you locate the belt, follow it to locate Sirius by moving your eyes to the left, as shown in the figure below. Follow the three belt stars of Orion 20 degrees southeast towards the brightest star you can see. 20 degrees is about two times your fist at arm’s length.
You'll know it when you see it: it is a very large, bright star and it twinkles all the colors of the rainbow. Yes, all stars twinkle, but this is extremely obvious because of its brightness. Sirius is a blue star but appears to change color rapidly due to the Earth’s atmosphere. Turbulence in the atmosphere causes the star’s light to be “bounced” all over the place. The light of the star is made up of many different colors which all “bounce” around differently. As a result, normally blue Sirius can appear to rapidly switch between many different colors when it is close to the horizon because its light is passing through more atmosphere than usual.
Happy gazing!
