Hello my name is Janine and in this video I'm going to teach you about Orion
the Hunter, a very famous constellation, and I'd like to teach you about how you
can find it in the sky, what the bright stars are, and the deep space objects you
can find within the constellation. Before we take a look at what Orion looks like
in the sky let's examine the legend behind Orion. It's bright stars have been
identified for thousands of years. It has been mentioned in Homer's Odyssey texts
and even in the present day, many have seen this group of stars simply if they
go into the movie theater because this is a logo of a very famous movie
production company. The ancient Arabs were said to be the first to recognize
this constellation, but the most famous legends are derived from Greek and Roman
legends. Orion's current name is derived from Greek mythology in which he was
depicted as a gigantic super naturally strong hunter of ancient times. Probably
the most famous myth of Orion out there is about Gaia's rage at Orion. He
threatened to kill every animal on the planet and she is protector of the earth,
so she was very angry at Orion and she released a deadly scorpion upon him.
Orion ended up puncturing his heel and a scorpion killed him, and it is said this
is the reason that the constellation Scorpius and Orion are never seen at the
sky in the same time. So if you take a look at a star map right here, and here
is Orion in the winter sky, this is where Scorpio is. So you could never see
them in the sky at the same time, and Orion has many myths and legends that
surround it that go back thousands of years and there's way too many to
recount in this video, but it's fascinating that many many cultures did
see some form of a human in the pattern of the stars. Now let's take a quick look
at the pattern of Orion, so here is a picture of Orion, and
hopefully when you look at it you can notice some patterns or bright stars or
maybe even some fuzzy objects in the photograph. If we want to take a look at
the pattern of what Orion looks like, here is the shape that he traces out in
the sky. Now remember with constellations as well, when we are when we're talking
about constellations it's not just all the bright stars but rather a huge area
of the sky that is designated as a constellation, and everything within
these border lines is considered to be part of the constellation of Orion. So
for example, this area of the sky would be part of the constellation of Orion
and this star and this star and so on and so forth, but we can really just
observe the bright stars in the sky. Here's another picture of Orion and
hopefully as you look at it a second time you can still see the pattern of
the belt stars right here, and here's one of the shoulder stars, another shoulder
star, down here this would be the legs or possibly knees of Orion and here's the
other side, and this famous object right here is known as Orion's nebula. we'll
talk about that in a little bit, but this is supposed to represent his sword. Now
out of all the constellations in the winter sky Orion is definitely the first
one you want to be able to identify and that's because if you can find Orion you
can find every other constellation that surrounds it within the winter sky. For
example, if you take the belt stars and follow imaginary line down this this
arrow will point you down to Sirius, which is a brightest star in the night
sky, in the constellation called Canis Major which is known as the great dog,
and if you take the belt stars and follow upwards it will lead you to
Taurus and point you to the red star called Aldebaran,
and moving forward if you use the shoulder stars moving across Orion, it
will point to Procyon, which is another bright star in the constellation Canis
minor, and furthermore if you go from Rigel to Betelgeuse this will lead you
up to Gemini right up in this area. You can't see all these constellations, I'm
just trying to show you where it's pointing to, and then finally if you do
the other side from the knee up to the shoulder it will point to Auriga, the
charioteer. Remember that if you can find Orion, if
you can find all the other constellations within the winter sky. As
we take a look at this large scale view of the sky, again take a look at this and
see if you can find Orion,, and now I want to show you how you use Orion to find
the rest of the constellations in the sky. So here is Orion, hopefully you're
seeing the belt stars and this will lead you down to Serious and Canis Major. You
can also use the belt stars to point up to Aldebaran, which is this bright star
in Taurus the Bull, and then you can use a shoulder stars to point you to Procyon.
Next you can use the knee all the way up to shoulder and this points you up to
Gemini, which is this constellation here, and then finally on the other side of
Orion it will point you up to Auriga, which is this Pentagon looking shaped
constellation. If we take all that away again and we want to look at what these
individual constellations look like, here is where they sit in the sky, so here is
Orion, Canis Major, Minor, Gemini, Auriga, and then
Taurus right here, and you can even see a portion of the constellation called
Cancer. Orion also has really cool bright stars within this
constellation. So let's take a look at what these look like. The bright stars
that are named within this constellation, we have Betelgeuse right here, some
people often pronounce this as Betelgeuse, but it's actually Betelgeuse,
and this is a bright red star, it's a red giant star towards the end of its life,
and it's about 310 light years away, so it's pretty close to the earth in
relation to many other things. The other bright star right here is Rigel and
Rigel is a whitish whitish blue star, and it's very very large it's a supergiant
star towards the end of its life, and it's very far away 900 light years away
but and again in comparison to other things that is relatively close, and then
we have Bellatrix right here, and this is another blueish colored star and it is
250 light years away. The other stars I'd like to quickly talk about in Orion are
the belt stars and if we take a closer look at these stars we have Alnitak,
which is 1,100 light years away, then Alnilam which is 1200 light years away, and
then Mintaka and this one is 1,400 light-years away. So they all have
general meanings that surround the word "belt" or "string of pearls" in Arabic, and
then what's important to know about the three belt stars, is right here you have
the Great Orion Nebula and you also have the Horsehead Nebula right here, so if
you have a set of binoculars this is a really great area to look at. So if we
were to zoom in on this area right here you could see the Horsehead Nebula. This
is such a cool picture and and here this is a colored version to help you see all
the little details within the cloud of gas and dust, but this is what it would
look like through a telescope. So again very cool celestial object, and if we
bounce back here looking at the great Orion Nebula this is what this looks
like, and this is a colored version again to help bring out the features within
Orion, but it's also known as Messier object 42 and 43. So this is the Great
Orion Nebula and it's really a stellar nursery where the stars are being born.
So just to recap Orion the Hunter. It's a constellation that can be seen in the
winter months. It's seasonal so it's not one we see all year round, only during
the winter, and the best way to look for it are to find the three belt stars
right here. We also have Betelgeuse, and Rigel, and Bellatrix right here, and the
celestial objects you can take a look at are the Orion Nebula, the Great Orion
Nebula right here, and then the Horsehead Nebula is right near that first belt
star. Thank you so much for watching and I hope you enjoy this video teaching you
a little bit about the constellation of Orion!