Naked eye & binocular targets Enjoy these winter-sky delights while you still can

Spring is on its way, so enjoy these winter-sky delights while you still can

Betelgeuse (Alpha Orionis) This bright-orange star, marking the shoulder of Orion, the Hunter, is the ninth-brightest in the sky. It’s a supergiant star, so big that it would stretch halfway to Jupiter if it replaced our own much smaller Sun. It lies 500 light years away. Sirius (Alpha Canis Majoris) The brightest star in the whole sky, Sirius shines with a beautiful, icy-blue light on winter evenings. Less than nine light years away, it is the fifth-closest star to the Sun. When low in the sky it flashes and sparkles like a jewel. Messier 41 Scan the sky directly beneath Sirius with a pair of binoculars and you’ll find a small star cluster. Messier 41 is 2,316 light years away and contains around 8,000 stars. On a clear night with no Moon you might even see it with your naked eye as a smudge. Orion’s Belt The three blue-white stars that form Orion’s famous ‘belt’ might all look like they’re the same distance away from us, but it’s a celestial optical illusion. Alnilam, the middle star, is almost twice as far away as its neighbours Alnitak (left) and Mintaka (right). The Orion Nebula (Messier 42) The middle star in Orion’s ‘sword’ looks misty and blurry to the naked eye. Binoculars reveal the star to actually be a nebula, a glowing cloud of gas and dust, inside which new stars are being born. It is over 1,300 light years away.