Orion & Taurus
Orion the Hunter and Taurus the Bull dominate the night sky during January and February. They are two of the 48 Greek constellations originally described by the 2nd century astronomer Claudius Ptolemy (Wikipedia), and they remain today among the 88 modern constellations defined by the International Astronomical Union (Wikipedia).
Orion (abbrev. = Ori; genitive = Orionis) covers 594 square degrees or 1.44% of the celestial sphere making it the 26th largest constellation. It contains 204 stars brighter than apparent magnitude 6.5, the brightest star being Rigel (Alpha Orionis). The three bright stars making up the Belt of Orion point westward towards Aldebaran in Taurus.
Taurus (abbrev. = Tau; genitive = Tauri) covers 797 square degrees or 1.93% of the celestial sphere making it the 17th largest constellation. It contains 223 stars brighter than apparent magnitude 6.5, the brightest star being Aldebaran (Alpha Tauri).
Visit the Orion Star Chart and Taurus Star Chart for figures illustrating these constellations including the identification of their brighter stars. The Winter Constellations Gallery offers close-up portraits of some of the brighter constellations of the season.
Technical Details
- Object: Orion & Taurus
- Date/Time: 2012 Feb 21 at 03:36 UTC
- Location: Bifrost Astronomical Observatory, Portal, AZ
- Mount: Losmandy G-11 German Equatorial Mount
- Lens: Nikkor AI 28mm f/2
- Camera: Canon EOS 550D (Rebel T2i)
- Field of View: 43.4° x 29.8° at 30.1 arc-sec/pixel (web version: 169 arc-sec/pixel)
- Exposure: 2 x 360s, f/4, ISO 800 and 120s, f/2.8, ISO 800 with Cokin A830 Diffusion Filter
- File Name: OriTau-01w.jpg
- Processing (Adobe Camera Raw): Color Balance, Vignetting, Noise Reduction
- Processing (Photoshop CS5): Curves, Layers
- Original Image Size: 3454 × 5179 pixels (17.9 MP); 11.5" x 17.3" @ 300 dpi
- Rights: Copyright 2012 by Fred Espenak. All Rights Reserved. See: Image Licensing.