In the sky this winter, Jupiter at it's best. Located in the Aries constellation, you will easily notice it's brightness contrasting with the blackness of the surrounding sky. With a small pair of binoculars, you will easily distinguish its four major satellites: Io, Callisto, Europa and Ganymede. As for the stars, a few bright ones dominate the southern sky. The most spectacular of them, Sirius, from the constellation Canis Majoris, is also the brightest star visible from Earth. Just over Sirius is the large constellation of Orion the hunter, in which we find the magnificent Orion Nebula (M42). This stellar nursery is observed easily with binoculars and is one of the most beautiful celestial objects observed through a telescope. One can also see the Pleiades, a beautiful small cluster of young stars located about 400 light years from the Earth, also observable with binoculars. Finally, the Andromeda galaxy, also known as M31, is very high in the sky, which favors its observation. It is found easily in the constellation Cassiopeia. Being the most distant object visible to the naked eye, it will appear as a small spot in a very dark sky, while a pair of binoculars or a small telescope reveal certain details of the structure of this galaxy to about 2.5 million light years.
Great skies!
