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> Winter hexagon

Winter hexagon

author: B.A.Tafreshi/Novapix

reference: a-cst58-00157

Image Size 300 DPI: 31 * 59 cm

Winter stars (in the northern hemisphere) rise in a dark night. The Milky Way is visible through patchy clouds and the elongated zodiacal light is notable on the left. The red line is made by someone walking with a red flashlight perhaps toward Sirius, the brightest star in the Earth night sky. Its a neighboring star to our sun "only" 8 light years away, still far enough that it takes over a hundred thousand years to reach it by today fastest spacecrafts! Notable in the background sky of this image is the Winter Hexagon; a celestial asterism with vertices at Sirius (lower right, in Canis Major), Rigel (right, at the foot of Orion), Aldebaran (upper right, in Taurus), Capella (upper left, in Auriga), the pair of Pollux/Castor (left, at the head of Gemini or the Twins), and Procyon (lower left, in Canis Minor).

Keywords for this photo:

2010 - ASTERISM - ASTRONOMY - AURIGA - BETELGEUSE - CANIS MAJOR - CANIS MINOR - CAPELLA - CASTOR - CONSTELLATION - GEMINI - HORIZON - HYADES - LANDSCAPE - LIGHT - M42 - M45 - MONOCEROS - NEBULA - NIGHT - OPEN CLUSTER - ORION - PLEIADES - POSTER - PROCYON - RIGEL - SIRIUS - STAR - STAR CLUSTER - STARRY SKY - TAURUS - WINTER - WINTER HEXAGON - WINTER TRIANGLE -