Can You See Orion?

The interactive animation below shows you what the constellation Orion might look like under different lighting conditions.

You can adjust the darkness of the sky by moving the top slider back and forth. Move it to the right (towards the tent) to see Orion in a dark sky, the way it might look if you were out camping far away from any lights. Move the slider to the left (towards the streetlight) to see how Orion might look from a city where there are many lights around. Stars with a magnitude that is low, like 1 or 2, are quite bright. Stars with higher number magnitudes, like 4 or 5, are not as bright. The least bright stars that most people can see without a telescope are around magnitude 6. The slider shows the "magnitude limit" of the least bright stars you could see with different amounts of light around.

The bottom slider, on top of the spinning globe, lets you change where you are on Earth. Move it up and down to see how Orion might look from different places on Earth.

If you can't see the animation below, or it doesn't seem to be working right, you may need to get the latest Flash player plugin for your computer.

Last modified September 4, 2007 by Randy Russell.
The source of this material is Windows to the Universe, at http://www.windows.ucar.edu/ at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR). ©1995-1999, 2000 The Regents of the University of Michigan; ©2000-05 University Corporation for Atmospheric Research. All Rights Reserved.