Monthly Night Sky information provided by Chris Vaughan (@Astrogeoguy) at Starry Night Education (@StarryNightEdu).

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The Stars of Orion’s Belt (evening)

February 17 @ 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm

Feb17-2025 at 8 pm - The Stars of Orion's Belt

Orion’s three belt stars are bright enough to tolerate tonight’s moonlight. They may look similar, but they are quite different, under closer inspection. The left-most (easterly) of the three, magnitude 1.85 Alnitak (Zeta Orionis) is bluer. In a telescope, Alnitak (Arabic for “the Girdle”) is revealed to be a very tight magnitude 1.85 double star. At 1,976 light-years from our sun, the middle star, Alnilam (Epsilon Orionis) is more than twice as far away as the other two. At the right-hand (western) end of the row, magnitude 2.4 Mintaka (Delta Orionis) is a more widely spaced double star. Using binoculars (orange circle) look for a large, upright, S-shaped asterism of dim stars in the space between Alnilam and Mintaka. The medium-bright star sitting less than a finger’s width below (or 0.8 degrees southwest of) Alnitak is Sigma Orionis, a beautiful little grouping of ten or more stars.

Details

Date:
February 17
Time:
7:00 pm - 10:00 pm
Event Category:
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