Orion

From Slackerpedia Galactica

Other things like Orion include the cat named Orion carrying the mini-constellation in the Men in Black movie.

Orion is named for the ancient Greek... oh Criminy, every friggin' constellation is named for some Greek somethingorother. Who cares. He's got a belt and a sword and a big, burly club and goes around beating on poor Taurus and harassing all the nicer constellations like Scutum and Coma Berenices. Seriously, what did Lepus ever do to you, you macho....

Um. Anyway. Orion is notable for having one of the largest star factories in this part of the galaxy. If one were to look at Orion with infrared eyes, one would see loads of nascent star systems fresh out of the oven. The little patch of light we call M42 is just one tiny, visible fraction of this bonanza of star formation. Most of it is all out of sight, to human eyes, anyway.

The constellation Orion is prominent in the southern sky during the winter months in the northern hemisphere. And in the northern sky during the summer months in the southern hemisphere because it's equatorial! In fact, it straddles the celestial equator. But of course, from the southern hemisphere, he looks upside down, and that's just silly.

The red star in Orion's armpit is the red supergiant star Betelgeuse. The blue one in his foot is Rigel. Betelgeuse is a variable star; Rigel not so much.

One handy way to learn star names and constellations is to consider the Great Circle of Orion. It's composed of many bright stars. Going clockwise from Rigel continue to Sirius then Procyon and Gemini's Pollux and Castor. The Ps in Procyon and Pollux match as do the Cs in Castor and Capella. Then it's on to Capella and Aldeberan and back to Rigel.