How to find Orion in winter

Look south-east in the late evening in December, or high in the south in January and February evenings, for three bright stars in a short, straight row. That's Orion's belt. Above it is a red-orange star, Betelgeuse; below it a blue-white one, Rigel. The rest of the shape grows from there.

The belt first

The belt is the easiest thing in the winter sky: three stars of nearly equal brightness, evenly spaced, in a line about as long as two fingers held side by side at arm's length. Nothing else looks like it.

In early December it rises in the east around 9 pm and is well up by bedtime only for late-night families; by January it is up in the south-east by 8 pm, and in February it is high in the south as soon as it is dark.

Then the rest

Above the belt and to the left (as you face south) is Betelgeuse, clearly orange-red: a huge, old star. Below and to the right is Rigel, blue-white and a little brighter. Two fainter stars make the other corners of a big box around the belt.

Hanging below the belt is a short line of fainter stars, the sword. The middle one looks fuzzy, even to eyes: that is the Orion Nebula, a cloud of gas where new stars are being made. Binoculars make it much clearer.

Follow the belt

The belt points. Follow it down to the left and you reach Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky. Follow it up to the right and you reach an orange star, Aldebaran, and beyond it a tiny, misty cluster of stars, the Pleiades. One shape gives you four more.

Watch it move

Orion rises in the east with its belt standing almost upright, crosses the south, and sets in the west tilted the other way. From week to week it rises about four minutes earlier each night, so by March it is already in the south-west at dusk, and by May it has slipped into the sunset for the summer.

If your child finds Orion in December, show them it again in February at the same time of night: it will be much higher and farther west. That slow drift is Earth moving along its orbit around the Sun.

Orion is also where the Orionid meteor shower seems to come from each October, after midnight.

Colours to look for

Betelgeuse and Rigel are a good first lesson in star colours. Orange-red stars like Betelgeuse are cooler; blue-white ones like Rigel are hotter. Ask your child which one they think is hotter before you tell them: most guess red, because red means hot on a tap.

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“Read it, then go and look. The sky is the best page in the book.”