Thanksgiving week leftovers

There is one more polygon that was left-over from last week, I didn't have room to put it in, so here goes.

There is another shape in the winter sky that astronomers look for. Just as the summer has a triangle, so does winter.

This triangle can be found low above the eastern horizon after 10 p.m. MDT, and we can use our old friend Orion to do it.

Start with bright, reddish Betelgeuse, the star marking Orion's right shoulder (right shoulder as you are looking at it), from there travel down and left at about a 45 degree angle and find Procyon, one of only two stars in Canis Minor, The Little Dog.

From there head right at a slightly down angle until you get the Sirius, the brightest star in the night-time sky. What? Did I hear you say you thought Polaris, the North Star was the brightest in the sky?

Sorry, as important as Polaris is, it barely makes it in the 48 brightest stars in the sky list. While we are looking at Sirius, put a pair of binoculars on it, if you have them. Just looking at the star in the early evening just before it sets shows it to be very sparkly object.

The sparkling will be magnified in binoculars for a fabulous sight. The sparkling is caused by atmospheric turbulence and dust particles in the air.

To complete our triangle return to our starting place of Betelgeuse. There you have the Winter Triangle.

Now is a great time to visit one of my favorite stars, Fomalhaut, the brightest star in the constellation Piscis Austrinus, the Southern Fish.

I guess I kind of have a soft spot for Fomalhaut, it is primarily known as the loneliest star in the sky because it is the only bright star in that part of the sky. In fact, it is the only star in the constellation you will be able to see with just your eyes alone.

The stars of Piscis Austrinus form sort of a rounded rectangle about 18 degrees above the horizon if you look due south about an hour after local sunset. That is just a little more then the width of your clenched fist held at arms length.

We really shouldn't feel too bad for Fomalhaut, in ancient days it was considered one of the four "Royal Stars" to the Persian Empire. It also had a brief spate of glory a few years ago when astronomers discovered a ring of dust and debris around the star making up a planet forming region.

In fact, there is a planet orbiting Fomalhaut and it was the first directly imaged extrasolar planet orbiting another star.

Something else that excited the fans of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings movies was the planet forming region around Fomalhaut looked exactly like what was depicted as the "Eye of Sauron" in the movies.

In other planetary activity, the reddish planet Mars appears to be staying pretty much in the same place from night to night as the days of December progress. It is the only planet visible in the early evening sky until the end of the month when bright Venus will join the party followed closely by tiny Mercury in early January. In mid-January Mars will join sister planet Neptune in a nice close conjunction. Giant Jupiter joins the early evening party about 10:30 p.m. MDT on Dec. 3, and Saturn shows up just before sunrise.

SKYWATCH: Full moon, Saturday, Dec. 6.

NEXT WEEK:More astronomical blathering.