Sunset is at 6:10 tonight, and twilight ends at 7:33, giving us a long stretch of dark sky until the moon rises at 3:49 Friday morning.
The best and brightest winter early evening constellations will be near the meridian from around 8:30 to 10:30 p.m. The meridian is the imaginary line that runs from north to south from celestial pole to celestial pole, dividing the sky into imaginary eastern and western halves.
Look south at 9:30 to see Gemini the Twins very high above the horizon, nearly overhead. Pollux and Castor, the bright stars in the Gemini, show contrasting colors. Castor is slightly dimmer than Pollux and to the right (west) and slightly higher (north) of Pollux. Castor is white, while Pollux is yellow.
Directly south from Castor and Pollux is Procyon in Canis Minor the Lesser Dog. Canis Minor, like Canis Major the Greater Dog, follows Orion the Hunter in the sky - but in no way resembles a dog. It consists of only two stars, Procyon and Gomeisa.
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Procyon is the eighth-brightest star in the sky and is "only" 11.4 light-years away.
Gomeisa, west (right) of Procyon, has three times the mass of the sun and radiates 250 times the energy of the sun but is dimmer than Procyon, since it is 170 light-years away.
South of Canis Minor is Monoceros the Unicorn. Monoceros is a boring collection of faint stars, sometimes depicted in an "L" configuration or a somewhat spiderlike configuration. Nevertheless, Monoceros is in the center of the Winter Milky Way, and it contains spectacular objects best viewed through a telescope or by long-exposure photography. One such object is the Rosette Nebula, a complex region of stars, dust and gas. The dust and gas produce a nebulosity that surrounds the stars and is a beautiful sight even in small telescopes.
South of Monoceros is Canis Major, which has bright stars and interesting telescopic objects, but its claim to fame is blazing Sirius - the brightest star in the sky. Moreover, south and west (right) of Canis Major is Canopus, the second-brightest star hovering just above the horizon, but bright enough to be visible above city lights.
Contact Tim Hunter at skyspy@azstarnet.com