The dippers

I'm looking up at the stars right now and I think I see one of the dippers, I don't know if it's the big or little. It's weird, I see 3 horizontal stars in a perfect line and right below them I see 3 vertical stars in a perfect line. Anyone know the name of those star systems? Anyone see this? Thanks!

Sounds more like Orion. Three of the stars being Orions Belt and the other three being his sword. The middle 'star' in the sword is the M42 Orion Nebula.

[edit on 3-4-2005 by nibiru]

Thanks for that info! I've always seen that and thought it looked odd.

Here is a visual aid.

Big Dipper Ursa Major



Little Dipper Ursa Minor



Orions Belt




Constellations in detail at Harvard.edu

Night sky page for high schoolers -- includes constellations and "tours" of the sky: Pretty cool:
www.ioncmaste.ca...#


The JH Star Gazer homepage is the page for a radio program about naked eye astronomy starhustler.com...

And here's a fun site, too: stardate.org...
It features weekly stargazing tips www.stardate.org...

Getting started on stargazing:
www.stardate.org...

Most of the observatories have newsletters. I subscribe to the McDonald one, myself.
mcdonaldobservatory.org...

One intresting thing you might want to learn about the dippers is they can tell the seasons. if the big dipper is above the little dipper ir is the summer, or rainy season (casue the little dipper cannot hold what is in the big dipper) and when the big dipper is below the little dipper it is the winter or dry season (cause the big dipper CAN hold what is in the little dipper)

Originally posted by Jehosephat
One intresting thing you might want to learn about the dippers is they can tell the seasons. if the big dipper is above the little dipper ir is the summer, or rainy season (casue the little dipper cannot hold what is in the big dipper) and when the big dipper is below the little dipper it is the winter or dry season (cause the big dipper CAN hold what is in the little dipper)

That would be fine if the seasons here were like that, but unfortunately, in BC, the winter is wetter than the summer. The other constellation of note that is right nearby is Cassiopea, which is opposite Polaris from the Big Dipper, and looks like a stretched out W.