Like a pair of tacks holding up the descending curtain of twilight, two bright stars make a brief appearance in the western sky as night falls. Brilliant Vega is quite low in the northwest, while slightly fainter Fomalhaut is the same height in the southwest.
The Moon brushes past Antares, the brightest star of Scorpius, the scorpion, in the dawn sky tomorrow. Antares shines with a distinctly orange hue. It is near the center of the scorpion's sinuous body.
Taurus, the bull, charges high across the south on winter nights. Thanks to three "landmarks," he's one of the easiest constellations to find. The landmarks are his bright orange "eye," the star Aldebaran; his V-shaped face; and the Pleiades cluster on his shoulder.
If you long for warm nights under the stars, recall the summer sky about an hour before sunrise tonight. The stars that appear during early evening in summer also appear just before dawn in winter. So tomorrow, you will see the stars as they will look during July.
Look toward the northeast during late evening for the Big Dipper. The handle points toward the horizon, with the bowl high in the sky. The second star from the end of the handle is called Mizar. If you look carefully, you might see its faint companion, Alcor.
Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, rises in the southeast in early evening and climbs across the south during the night. It looks so bright in part because it is one of our closest stellar neighbors, at a distance of just 8.6 light-years.
The story of Jason and the Argonauts is retold in the remains of the constellation Argo Navis, which has been split into four constellations in modern times. Parts of these constellations are visible low in the south on winter evenings.
Polaris, the north star, marks Earth's northern axis on the dome of the sky. As Earth turns, all the stars appear to move across the sky except Polaris. As though forming the hub of a wheel, Polaris stands still while the other northern stars circle around it.
