Sirius and Canopus dominate our Arizona skies in February

Arizona observers have a chance to see two of the most amazing stars in the sky during the month of February.

Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, is easy to see in the southeastern sky around 7:30 p.m. Arizona time.

Sirius is a hot blue star located at a distance of 8.611 light years.

The name “Sirius” comes from Greek word, “seirios” or “scorching.”

Sirius appears to be a real scorcher in the night sky too! Sirius is located the constellation of Canis Major, the large dog.

It shines with a magnitude of minus 1.46, making it very bright by star standards as it is also appears blue to the eye.

With a mass of nearly two times that of our sun, Sirius is a young hot A class star, which has incredible surface temperatures. Its luminosity is 25 times that of our star, the sun.

Orbiting Sirius is a small white dwarf star known as Sirius B. This star was discovered back in 1862 by the famous telescope builder Alvan Clark.

The dwarf star orbits the primary in a period of 50 years. Sirius B is some 10 magnitudes fainter than the primary, Sirius A, and separated by only a few arc seconds.

Here is the orbital path of Sirius B.

And an image of what the pair looks like.

Sirius B is smaller than the Earth and checks in at magnitude plus 8.4.

The density of this star is too large to imagine, as it comes out to be around 1.7 metric tons per square centimeter. Like the size of a sugar cube. Wow!

Imagine if you could stand on that star – how much would you weigh?

This is a good year to try to view the tiny star known as the “Pup,” as it lies nearly as far as it can get from the primary star.

A decent-sized telescope is required to see this object.

Best of luck!

The second brightest star in the sky, Canopus, will put on a great show also. The star never rises for observers who are north of 37 degrees north latitude.

Canopus, is 310 light years from us and the light you see tonight left in the year 1711 when Handel’s opera “Rinaldo” premiered in London.

Eight times as massive as our Sun and 10,000 times more luminous, this celestial giant is an amazing star in the constellation of Carina the Keel.

To find this historic star, look due south around 7:30 p.m. Arizona time. Canopus will be the bright star near the southern horizon.

You will need a clear sky free of buildings and trees to see it.

Here is a graphic of the two stars in our Arizona skies.

Canopus lies in the constellation of Carina the Keel. This is part of on old constellation known as Argo Navis, the mythological ship of Jason and his Argonauts.

Canopus has always been a star of early navigators, as well as the star by which many spacecraft navigate.

The star was also made famous by science-fiction author Frank Herbert, whose “Dune” novel described a small planet, Arrakis, discovered near the celestial object was the source of spice, the most important substance in the universe.
With a spectral class of A9 II, this is a very hot and young star.

Stars like this start off with very high temperatures and then evolve into cooler stars once they consume much of the original fuel, hydrogen, that keeps them going.

These type stars are young in the sense that they have not developed a strong magnetic dynamo and they are lacking in strong X-ray emissions.

A-class stars rotate very fast and may not have developed vast planetary systems around them.

Enjoy a view of the night sky with this virtual planetarium.

To print your own monthly star chart, click here.

To view satellites/dates/times of passage, click here

Listen to the Dr. Sky Show on KTAR News 92.3 FM every Saturday at 3 a.m.