Fornax
Fornax, the furnace, is named for a piece of lab equipment used by chemists of the 18th century. From the U.S. it’s best seen from the southern states. It stands low above the southern horizon as night falls.
Familiar Sights
The eastern sky offers some well-known sights on winter evenings. By around 9 o’clock tonight, for example, Leo is springing skyward in the east, with the Big Dipper standing on its handle in the northeast.
Sky Cats
Three cats pad across the sky tonight. One is bright and fairly easy to find, but the others are faint. The brightest is Leo, the lion. Just to Leo’s north is Leo Minor, the little lion. The third cat, the lynx, stretches overhead from the lions.
Moon and Jupiter
The giant planet Jupiter is just moving into view in the morning sky now. Tomorrow, look for it to the lower left of the crescent Moon in early twilight. It will climb higher over the coming weeks, making it easier to see.
Rigel
Rigel is not just one of the brightest stars visible in the night sky. It’s also one of the brightest stars in the galaxy, shining more than 100,000 times brighter than the Sun. Rigel is in the southeast as night falls, to the right of Orion’s Belt.
Moon and Companions
The crescent Moon has two colorful companions the next couple of mornings: the planet Mars and the star Antares. Both look orange. Mars’s color is caused by iron-rich dust on its surface. Antares is colored by the temperature of the gas at its surface.
Dog Stars
A pair of dogs trots across the night skies of winter: Sirius, the Dog Star, and Procyon, the little dog star. The names indicate that they’re the brightest stars of the constellations Canis Major, the big dog, and Canis Minor, the little dog.
Moon and Spica
Spica, the brightest star of Virgo, will stand well to the right of the Moon at first light tomorrow. Spica consists of two stars that are gravitationally bound to each other. The surfaces of the two stars are only a few million miles apart.
Last-Quarter Moon
The Moon will reach last quarter at 6:58 a.m. CST tomorrow. It will stand at a right angle to the line between Earth and the Sun, so sunlight will illuminate half of the visible lunar surface.
Epsilon Geminorum
Epsilon Geminorum, one of the brighter stars of the constellation Gemini, is in the east in early evening. The star is about 150 times the Sun’s diameter, so it’s visible to the unaided eye even though it is about 900 light-years from Earth.