One good thing about winter

If there is one good thing about winter, its the wide selection of celestial objects to view. Too bad the cold temperatures don't allow extended viewing time!

Take the Double Cluster in the constellation Perseus for example. The almost-twin open star clusters are located about 7,000 light years away between the constellations of Perseus and Cassiopeia in the northeastern sky.

Perseus is the "A" shape group of stars laying on its side and Cassiopeia is the giant "W" standing up on end almost due north.

Start looking about an hour after sunset from a dark-sky location. The double Cluster is visible without any optical aide as a pair of indistinct fuzzy blobs. A pair of binoculars or a telescope on low power magnification will show them off at their best.

The pair, known since pre-history, features between 200 to 400 stars each. If they were located at the same distance as the Pleiades star cluster (370 light years) they would cover almost one-quarter of the sky.

In the eastern sky we find winter's counterpart to the Summer Triangle. The Winter Triangle consists of the three very bright stars, Sirius in Canis Major, Procyon in Canis Minor and Betelgeuse located as the right shoulder star of Orion, the Hunter.

The Winter Triangle not challenging enough for you? Try finding the Winter Circle or Octagon as some call it.

To locate it first find the bright blue-giant star Rigel at the left knee of Orion, travel up and right to the red giant Aldebaran in Taurus, then up and left to yellow Capella, the brightest star in Auriga, the Charioteer. Proceed straight down to the twins Castor and Pollux in Gemini. Continue downwards to Procyon in Canis Minor, the little dog, and finally back to our starting place at Rigel.

This octagon, or circle, has bright red Betelgeuse, Orion's right shoulder, for a centerpiece.

SKY WATCH: Third quarter moon, Dec. 19. Winter starts in the northern hemisphere on Sunday, Dec. 21 at 5:04 am MST. Venus and Jupiter continue to put on a show in the southwestern evening sky just after sunset. Keep watching the pair as Venus slowly pulls away to the upper left and Jupiter sinks to the lower right back toward the glare of sunset.

Venus will continue upward until Dec. 26 when it well have a close meeting (a little more than one degree apart) with the distant blue planet Neptune.

That would be a good time to get your binoculars out and use Venus to find the difficult-to-locate planet. The pair will still be together the next night, Dec. 27.

Tonight (Thursday) go out after midnight and look in the southeast for another evening planet, Saturn. It will be joined by the 21-day old moon.

Next time: More astronomical blathering.