Stargazing (Winter) - Beginner's Guide

Winter. It is a season when the cold makes it difficult to be outside, but the zodiac constellations that everyone knows are shining brightly.
Let's take a walk through the starry sky to find those zodiac constellations.

---
<When explaining the starry sky, it is standard to use cardinal directions (North, South, East, West) rather than up, down, left, and right, but>
<to prioritize clarity, I have summarized them using up, down, left, and right, assuming you are standing in the Northern Hemisphere facing south.>
<This is the starry sky as seen in Sapporo, Hokkaido, around 10:00 PM on January 1st, 8:00 PM on February 1st, and 6:00 PM on March 1st.>

Generally, the four zodiac constellations that are easy to see in winter are, in order from the right (west):
　・Aries
　・Taurus
　・Gemini
　・Cancer

Although 'Cancer' might be classified as a spring constellation, it is clearly visible in the southeastern sky.

As for how to find them, as I explained in the 'Stargazing (Winter) Introductory' note, 'Taurus' and 'Gemini' can be easily found because they contain first-magnitude stars.Stargazing (Winter) Introductory』

'Taurus' has stars arranged in a V-shape around the red-shining first-magnitude star 'Aldebaran'. This forms the head of the Bull.
If you extend the V-shape from there, you will see second and third-magnitude stars shining; these form the horns of the Bull.
(If you extend from the Aldebaran side, there is a third-magnitude star, and if you extend the opposite side, there is a second-magnitude star. By the way, this second-magnitude star is the Bull's horn, but it belongs to 'Auriga'.)

And, speaking of 'Taurus', there is 'M45: The Pleiades star cluster'.
The area from the V-shape to the 'Pleiades' corresponds to the Bull's torso, and 'Orion', located just to the lower left, is depicted as if standing up to the Bull, but it is also said that the Bull is protecting the Pleiades (the Seven Sisters) behind it from Orion.

Next is 'Gemini'.
'Gemini', as the name suggests, is modeled after the twins 'Castor' and 'Pollux'.
'Castor' and 'Pollux' each form the head of the twins, and from there, two or three stars continue toward the lower right.
It is a very easy-to-understand constellation, isn't it?
By the way, the 'Geminid meteor shower', which is counted as one of the so-called 'three major meteor showers', has its radiant point near Castor.
(Let's save the topic of meteor showers for another time.)

So, where is 'Aries', which comes just before 'Taurus'?

Unfortunately, 'Aries' only has one second-magnitude star, and all the others are third-magnitude or lower, so it is not a constellation whose shape is clearly recognizable.
Even so, its only second-magnitude star, 'Hamal', can be found by looking toward the lower right (west) from the 'Pleiades' in 'Taurus'.
Nearby, the second-brightest third-magnitude star, 'Sheratan', is shining, so if you can find these two stars, that is 'Aries'.

As for the other zodiac constellation, 'Cancer', we can trace it from 'Gemini'.
This is a bit of a jump, but if you see a bright star low in the eastern sky, let's use it. What you see is 'Regulus', the first-magnitude star of 'Leo'.
Draw a line from 'Castor' and 'Pollux' in 'Gemini' toward 'Regulus', and roughly halfway between them, if the sky is dark, you should be able to see a celestial object that looks like stars scattered about twice the size of a full moon.
This is 'M44: The Beehive Cluster' in 'Cancer'.

In terms of brightness alone, the magnitude of the 'Beehive Cluster' is 3.1.
(Although, since it is an open cluster, it does not look as bright as its magnitude suggests.)
Since the magnitude of 'Tarf', the brightest star in 'Cancer', is 3.5, the 'Beehive Cluster' serves as a landmark for finding 'Cancer'.