Science Forums 2

[Michaelangelica]

SUMMER NIGHT SKY
You've spent the whole year with your eyes glued to a computer screen. Now the holidays are here, what better time to expand your horizons? Join Kathy Graham on a dusk-to-dawn tour of the summer night sky.
Summer Night Sky - Features - The Lab - Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Gateway to Science

Then there's the Great Orion nebula, our closest large region of star formation, situated in the saucepan handle. Through binoculars, the Trapezium, the four bright stars at its heart, are easy to spot.

Right now in the early evening, Orion is low in the northeast. But by mid January, it will dominate the northern sky.

Download your personal night sky tour

Feeling starry eyed? Then visit the Sydney Observatory website for upcoming sky events, a night sky star map for each month and an audio guide of the month’s night sky which you can download onto your iPod for your very own personal sky tour.

Orion is very useful for locating other stars such as Sirius, the brightest star in the sky due to its proximity to earth – a mere nine light years away. Sirius has a dense ‘white dwarf’ star circling it and can be spied on Orion’s right.

Aldebaran, the brightest star in the constellation of Taurus (it forms the bull’s eye), and one of the brightest stars in the sky, twinkles on Orion’s left. Aldebaran dazzles for good reason. It’s 65 light years away and about 38 times the size of our sun – so big in fact that earth would skim close to its surface if we orbited it.