Winter Constellations

Looking southwards on clear moonless February nights reveals many dark-sky wonders

- Bob Mizon MBE

PICK out the shape of the heavenly bull in the stars of Taurus, in the south-west late in the evening. The V-shaped cluster of the Hyades, forms the bull’s head. Its scatter of stars is 150 light years away from us. Taurus’ red eye, the giant star Aldebaran, lies halfway between us and the Hyades. Above is the glittering triangle of the Pleiades. To the right of Taurus is the less conspicuous constellation of the celestial ram, Aries. Lording it over all is Orion; a binocular trawl around his central region will reveal the Great Nebula, M42, below Orion’s central belt star, and the many skeins and groups of stars associated with it. Leo the lion, anothe