Sirius

[planetdnb]

After a couple of hours of observing on Saturday night I packed up at 2am and went in doors. Just before going to bed I peered through the window and saw what initially i thought was a star really twinkling just below Orion.

It seemed to be twinkling red blue and white, I dismissed it as a star thinking it would be an aeroplane (I live near stanstead) but it didn't really move any closer. So then I thought maybe it was a police helicopter hovering over a criminal.

Anyway last night i woke up at about 3am to tend to a call of nature and there it was again. I had to find out what it was and it turned out to be Sirius!

What a beautiful star, it really did look like it was alternating between blue, red and white - is this down to atmospherics?

[Demonperformer]

Yes. Sirius has two problems that way. Firstly, it is very bright (the brightest star in the sky) and secondly, it is always fairly low down, so the light has to pass through a lot of atmosphere to reach us.

[yeti monster]

In China Sirius is called the wolf of the sky. When you get chance to see it high up it really is a very bright star, similar to how bright Jupiter has been of late.

[planetdnb]

Yeah i read that it was magnitude -1.46 thats pretty damn bright!