Orion (www.freewebs.com)This week I’m going to bang on about Orion, the constellation which completely dominates the SW sky at the moment, hanging over St Agnes and the Western Rocks. But not for long - as we get closer to mid summer, it will sink lower and lower towards the horizon until we lose it altogether. Orion is the one of the largest and certainly the most beautiful of the constellations and contains a large number of intriguing deep space objects.
Orion The Hunter, is a prominent constellation, one of the largest and perhaps the best-known and most conspicuous in the sky. Its brilliant stars are found on the celestial equator and are visible throughout the world. Its three prominent "belt" stars - three stars of medium brightness in the mid-section of this constellation - make it easy to spot and globally recognised.
According to the most common contemporary imagery, Orion is standing next to the river Eridanus with his two hunting dogs Canis Major and Canis Minor, fighting Taurus the bull. Other prey of his, such as Lepus the hare, can be found nearby.
There are other contemporary names for Orion. In
Historically, it has had other names, perhaps the earliest known being the Babylonian "Shepherd of Anu", corresponding to an apparent representation of the constellation Auriga or an element of it, as a shepherd's crook.
The Horsehead Nebula, pictured by Hubble. (NASA)
Besides these nebulae, surveying Orion with a small telescope will reveal a wealth of interesting deep sky objects, including M43, M78, as well as multiple stars including Iota Orionis and Sigma Orionis. A larger telescope may reveal objects such as Barnard's
Star formation in Orion in infrared by Spitzer Space Telescope.(NASA)All of these nebulae are part of the larger Orion Molecular Cloud Complex which is located approximately 1,500 light-years away and is hundreds of light-years across. It is one of the most intense regions of stellar formation visible in our galaxy.
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