How to find Orion
The most recognizable constellation in the sky, anchored by three belt stars and home to the Orion Nebula.
Rigel — blue-white supergiant; the red supergiant Betelgeuse is the famous variable nearby.
Orion is the gateway constellation — once you can spot the three evenly spaced stars of his Belt, you can navigate half the winter sky. It straddles the celestial equator, so it's visible from almost everywhere on Earth.
It's at its best on winter evenings in the northern hemisphere (summer in the south), riding high in the south around January.
The shape and its stars
Orion is marked by two brilliant corner stars — orange-red Betelgeuse at the shoulder and blue-white Rigel at the knee — with the three Belt stars (Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka) in a tidy row between them.
Betelgeuse is a red supergiant nearing the end of its life; Rigel is a hot, luminous blue supergiant. The contrast in colour between the two is obvious even to the naked eye.
The Sword and the Nebula
Hanging below the Belt is a fainter line of stars — the Sword. Its middle 'star' is actually the Orion Nebula (M42), a vast star-forming cloud visible as a fuzzy patch to the naked eye and stunning through binoculars or a telescope.
How to find it
- Look south on a winter evening for three bright stars in a short, straight row — that's the Belt
- The Belt points down-left to Sirius (the brightest star) and up-right to orange Aldebaran
- Drop below the Belt to find the Sword and the misty glow of the Orion Nebula
Deep-sky highlights
- Orion Nebula (M42) — naked-eye, spectacular in any optics
- De Mairan's Nebula (M43) and the Running Man nearby
- Horsehead and Flame nebulae near Alnitak (a dark-sky photographic target)
Stella shows exactly when Orion is highest from your location tonight — and whether the sky is worth it.
Coming soon —Get early access