Expert: Courtney Seligman - 11/27/2010

Question
Hi, I've been outside in the past few weeks and I've seen this same cluster of stars in the sky, and I was curious to know more about it if you could tell me. I haven't been able to find the name, but it's shaped almost like a rectangle with three stars in the middle of it in a line that goes kind of like \ in a row. Could you be able to tell me what the name of it is?

Answer
That sounds like Orion, which is rising nearly due east in the early evening. If so, there would be a bright reddish star on the left (Betelgeuse), a bright bluish one on the right (Rigel), three equally spaced nearly equally bright stars in a nearly straight slightly tilted line about halfway between, a fainter star up to the right of Betelgeuse (so the upper left side of the rectangle), and a fainter star down to the left of Rigel (so the lower right side of the rectangle).

As the constellation rises, it will gradually tilt clockwise, so that when it is due south (about six hours after it rises), Betelgeuse will be the top left star in the rectangle, Rigel the bottom right, and the "belt" (the three stars in a row) more nearly horizontal, but slightly tilted up toward the right.

(This answer assumes that you are in the northern hemisphere. In the southern hemisphere, the descriptions would be backwards.)