Orion's Belt

Whenever I find myself outside at night, I'm always looking for Orion. I don't know why that particular constellation has stuck with me for the past ten or so years, since I took Astronomy in my freshman semester at Delta College.  But, no matter where I am I find myself looking for the three distinct stars shaping Orion's belt, the cluster forming his sword, Betelgeuse ("armpit of the great one"). Following his armpit, you find him fighting Taurus. Three more distinct stars. Following his shoulder, you run into --- I forget if it is Ursa Major or Ursa Minor. I believe the line takes you all the way to the North Star.  I suppose if I found my planesphere (as that is so much easier than the internet quite literally at my fingertips as we speak?) I could tell for sure.

Sometimes I don't realize how much I was influenced by this astronomy class. That is, until one of my residents at work walks me to my car and points to the sky asking me to find Orion for him, which we have done on several occasions I guess.  Like I said... I find myself always looking for Orion, so this must have happened hundreds of times over the past few years.... or at least a hundred times? We could follow a logical strain of events, but that would lead to math....and I hate math.

Today I talked with my buddy about why we couldn't see Orion tonight specifically.  Seeing as I didn't have my planesphere (which I went into great detail to explain to him, and he was very VERY good at humoring me or he really did follow exactly what I was saying), I opted to draw diagrams ... with my finger on the hood of my car, which neither of us could see because there was no condensation and the garage light was too bright. That led me to explaining light pollution and how if we really wanted to look at cool stars we'd have to find a really dark place so all we could see was the moon and stars.  Then I decided to use body diagrams to explain how the earth rotates on an axis as it revolves around the sun. I let him be the sun.  That was cool.  Especially when he started spinning in circles because I was.

I don't know why I decided to write about this today.  It was just a pretty cool experience I had, I guess.  There aren't many things I feel like I know enough about to go into such great detail, but it was one of those moments where you sit back after it all happens and think, "wow, I really did learn something that stuck." And I think it's cool that somebody actually SEEMS to want to learn something based on my knowledge of the subject.  I feel like I could have gone on and on for an hour about the stars today.

And to think, most people just think of Men In Black when they hear "Orion's Belt."