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Re: Orion Constellation

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Posted by Randi Maire/">Randi Maire on March 17, 1999 14:09:33 UTC

: : : YOU PICKED A GREAT CONSTELLATION AS IT CONTAINS MANY FAMOUS AND NEATO FEAATURES, HERE IS SOME STUFF FROM A BOOK I HAVE WHICH WAS PUBLISHED IN 1907 BUT THE FACTS ARE STILL GOOD TODAY. : : Orion contains more bright stars than any other group. Orion representa the hunter, facing Taurus, the mighty bull, who, with fire darting from its eye (marked by Aldebaran), is about to make a charge with his mighty horns. Orion stands with his right arm uplifted and his great club in the air ready to strike. Over his left arm hangs a lion's skin, which he holds up as a sort of shield before him. Orion has the distinction of being the only constellation visible in our latitude that contains as many as two stars of the first magnitude. They are Betelgeuse, and Rigel, both rather famous in science fiction. Betelgeuse marks the right shoulder of Orion, and Rigel is in the left foot. The color of Betelgeuse is deep red tinged with orange, a color that marks the least scintillating (twinkeling) of the stars. It indicates also that the star has passed it's brightest stage and is nearing the period of darkness. It is a variable star which passes irregularly from its brightest to its dullest stage of lucidity. Most of the time it equals in brightness Altair or Aldebaran but sometimes is no brighter than Fomalhaut or Deneb. But it always remains bright eneough to remain a first magnitude star. Rigel rises about fifteen or twenty minutes after Betelgeuse. It is the brightest star in Orion and lies about 16 degrees south of Betelgeuse. Rigel is a very bright star which ranks in brillancy next to Acturus. It is a bright white star and therefore younger than Betelgeuse. According the red-shift it is moving away from us at the rate of about fifteen miles per second. Betelgeuse is going away from us a little faster, about 22 Mi/sec. The left shoulder of Orion is marked by Bellatrix which is of the second magnitude but still a very bright star. Three dazzling 2nd magnitude stars form the belt or girdle, of Orion an lies half way between Betelgeuse and Rigel. These are the stars supposed to be refered to by Job as "the bands of Orion." They lie in a straight line exactly three degrees long, and are rendered so conspicuous by their position and their beauty that they are an aid in finding the constellation. The upper one of them lies exactly on the celestial equator and is a fine double star discovered by the means of the spectroscope. They are in fact all three double stars and probably binary systems. These three stars are called in some places the "three kings," and the line formed by them is sometimes called the " ell and yard" on account of its being just three degrees long. Hanging from the belt is a curved line of stars known as the sword o;f Orion. The third one from the bottom is distinctly hazy in appearance, and is none other than the famous Orion Nebula (a great picture of which is probably downloadable from the Hubble space telescope site if I only knew how to get there) It is one of the finest nebulae in the heavens and is one of the few that can be seen with the naked eye. The one star seen in the nebula resolves theough the telescope into six beautiful stars and forms a figure that is sometimes refered to as the "Orion trapezium." The forth star which with Betelgeuse, Rigel, and Bellatrix form the large parallelogram that outlines the constellation is called Saiph and is situaated in the right knee of the mighty hunter. During Nov. and Dec. Orion becomes a familiar figure in the evening sky, rising a little earlier each evening until during the week on each sid of new years day he appears in the east just as daylilght fades. In Feb. he stand erect in the Southern sky at nine o'clock in the evening. In March and April he is rushing furiously down the western sky after Taurus and the Pleiades, and by the middle of May he has disappeared from the evening view. In the later half of July the very early early riser can catch a glimpse of him in the east just before daylight. It is no doubt, in this mounth the "rosy-fingered dawn" took him for her lover, as shee is reputed to have done. ::: HOPE THIS HELPS YOU OUT AND I HOPE IT IS NOT TOO LATE. ANYONE WANT TO CHECK MY FACTS AND/OR ADD TO THEM PLEASE DO!!

: :What time would Orion rise in Bermuda in mid-October?

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