By Prashant Naik
The chart alongside shows the night sky over Shillong during the month of February 2019 at 8:00 pm.
With Shillong being at 25.5o N, latitude, we see mostly northern constellations.
The E-W line shows the celestial equator and the line cutting it shows the zodiac line or the sun’s apparent path.
The capital letters indicate the name of constellations and the other letters indicate the prominent stars.
Planet Mars will be visible in the western sky.
Planet Uranus would be visible through powerful telescope only in the western sky.
The prominent constellations visible are Cepheus ,Orion, Canis minor, Cetus, Cancer. Canis Major, Pisces, Gemini, Taurus, Aries, Cassiopeia, Ursa major, Ursa minor, Auriga, Andromeda and Perseus.
The constellation of the month is Orion.
Orion often referred to as “Hunter,” is a prominent constellation – one of the largest, most conspicuous, and most recognizable in the night sky.
Its name refers to Orion, a hunter in Greek mythology Orion’s brilliant stars are found on the celestial equator and are visible throughout the world.
Orion includes the prominent asterism known as the ‘belt’ of Orion: three bright stars in a row.
Surrounding the belt at roughly similar distances are four bright stars, which are considered to represent the outline of the hunter’s body.
Apparently descending from the ‘belt’ is a smaller line of three stars (one of which is in fact not a star but the Orion Nebula), known as the hunter’s ‘sword’.
The three most interesting stars in this group form the famous belt of Orion: æ, Alnitak, å, Alnilam, and ä, Mintaka.
Alnitak is a remote double with component magnitude of 1ÿ9 and 4ÿ05; Alnilam is a super giant star at a distance of 1600 light years (as is Alnitak) with an absolute mag of – 6ÿ8: and Mintaka ia an eclipsing variable (mag 2ÿ2 – 2ÿ35) with a mag 6ÿ47 companion and a period slightly less than six days.
The upper part of the constellation is marked by á, Betelgeuse, (mag 0ÿ5 – 1ÿ1 variable, M2 type) and í, Bellatrix (mag 1ÿ64, B2 type).
To the south lie ÷, Saiph (mag 2ÿ06 , B0 type), and â, Rigel (mag 0.08, B8 type of absolute mag – 7ÿ1, distance 900 light years).
A striking quadruple system is that of ó Orionis, southwest of Alnitak. Slightly farther south lies the Great Orion Nebula, faintly visible to the naked eye, and a magnificent sight in any telescope.
The vast cloud of gas is largely illuminated by the stars of the Trapezium, è Orionis, all young stars between 6th and 8th magnitude.
The new moon will be on 4th and full moon on 19thth february respectively.