The month of February its the best time of the year to look for the brightest star in the sky. This is Sirius the Dog Star.
To find Sirius use the stars of Orion’s Belt to help you. The constellation of Orion can be seen in the sky in the south in the evenings and is formed from four bright stars that form a splendid looking rectangle and in the middle of this rectangular shape are three bright stars in a diagonal line. These are the stars of Orion’s Belt.
Draw a line to the left and downwards following the line of the belt stars to find Sirius which is the brightest star in the constellation of Canis Major the greater Dog.
Sirius is bright because it is close to us astronomically speaking. It is only around 8.5 light years away. Other stars are hundreds, thousands or millions of light years away. Astronomers use the speed of light to measure distance in space. Light travels at 186,000 miles per second.
In ancient Egypt the astronomers watched for Sirius to rise in the morning sky just before the Sun. This would be during August. They knew this meant the river Nile was about to flood. The farmers had to make sure their fields were ready for the life giving water and sediment that would flood the fields and hopefully ensure a good crop. This event is called the Heliacal Rising.
If you have a chance to see Sirius in the next few weeks and have any members of your family who are around 8.5 years old, and they can see Sirius then the light that will enter their eyes left Sirius the year they were born and travelling at 186,000 miles per second has just reached the Earth.
Happy Stargazing
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