The telltale belt: Orion is back

Call me crazy, but I like turning the clocks back an hour like we did last weekend. Anything that adds stargazing time to the evening is a good thing in my book, and night falling an hour earlier does just that.

That hand moving backward in November beckons Orion to come out and play. Starting tonight, Nov. 8, the constellation pokes his head above the horizon, rising around 10 p.m. Look for his telltale belt in the eastern sky. These three unmistakable stars are named, from left, Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka. Alnitak is closest to the orange-red star Betelgeuse, which sits on Orion’s right shoulder as he faces us.

What’s neat about Orion is that, of the 10 stars — well, nine stars and one nebula — making up the Hunter’s shoulders, feet, belt and sword, almost all of them are relatively similar distances from Earth. Many stars in a constellation only look like their distances from Earth are similar, but they actually differ by many thousands of light years.

Alnitak is 817 light years away from us, Alnilam is 1,976 light years away and Mintaka is 916 light years away. The light from his shoulders, Betelgeuse and Bellatrix, took 498 and 252 years, respectively, to reach us. Even his feet, right-foot Saiph and left-foot Rigel, are 647 and 863 light years away. So when we look at Orion we’re seeing him as he looked, on average, 850-ish years ago.

The three stars hanging vertically between his feet and belt make up his sword and tell a different story. The top star is 359 light years away from Earth, the middle “star” is actually a nebula, and the bottom star in the belt is farthest, at 2,330 light years away.

A stargazer with a telescope or binoculars can easily spend a long winter evening with Orion.