Looking at the clear sky right now and (any astronomers here?)...

[mustang1]

I'm in London and the sky is clear, the air is crisp, and I'm noticed some stars. I'm looking in a south east direction and I see a rather bright star in the lower left of my field of view (but still looking upwards). To the horizontal right and ever so slightly up, is another, dimmer, star. Looking higher up from this 2nd star are three stars that appear to be in a line.

A lot further up (looking further upwards I mean) is another star (and above that is a beautiful full-ish moon - I saw "full-ish" because looking thru double glazed windows it's a bit distorted).

So which constellation am I looking at?

Also, what actually perked my curiosity, is that i really thought that I saw that first bright star move and then became still again. Yes I know everything is in motion, but my imagination was such that I thought it had moved over a 30 second period and then went still, so I couldn't tell if it was an airplane or a star. Yeah I know, my imagination runs wild occasionally.

 

[Drago]

My degrees are in astronmy related fields, and without a) checking a celestial map and ephemeris data, or b) getting out of bed to look, I cant say.

Can you snap a pic at all?

 

[Grant Fondo]

Not sure... SE in Jan may be Sirius which is brightest star? Venus was v bright the other morning.
I would say the 3 stars in a row are Orion's Belt these point to Sirius to the bottom left of them. Out of London Orion is really bright and you can see a blurry Galaxy ( The Horse head nebula) under the ''belt'

 

[ColinJ]

Have a play with InThe Sky!

 

[mustang1]

Thanks @Drago - I think I found it: Cygnus.

Over here https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/15-constellations-every-man-should-know/
in the diagram of Cygnus, I was viewing the three stars in the upper right which are in (an almost) horizontal line plus a few stars around that region.

Edit: @User9609, ah ok, maybe Orion then.

 

[mustang1]

Have a play with InThe Sky!

That's great, thanks very much!

 

[mustang1]

[QUOTE 5507284, member: 9609"]Orions Belt - the bright star will be the 'Dog star' Sirius - think it is the brightest star in the northern hemisphere[/QUOTE]

Taking another look out there, yes I can now see that it's Orion. Thanks!

 

[mustang1]

It's crazy how we fit into the grand scheme of things. Probably some aliens think we're little specs of sand.

 

[Grant Fondo]

 

[classic33]

Worth a gander?
http://www.astronomy.co.uk/skymap

 

[Drago]

And how exactly did the Dogon people know about Sirius B before it was discovered by modern astronomers?

 

[Salty seadog]

Yes, It's orion and it's slightly west of South from you, not south east.

Download https://stellarium.org for the pc. There is also an app You can play about with it and go forward and back in time and see where the heavenly bodies will be or were.
Also sky Map. This app let's you point at the night sky with your phone and it will give you the map of where your pointing with name of planets etc and you can pan around

 

[Drago]

Orion is magnificent. I love autumn as the evenings get darker and Orion peeks over the horizon.

 

[Drago]

Naked eye astronomy can be interesting in it's own right. I had a crack at it, but having the attention span of a worm I immediately became interested in tracking satellites...and then decoding their signals....and then bouncing ham radio signals off them...

I mat look like a Ukranian born GRU assassin, but I'm a huge closet nerd.

 

[mustang1]

[QUOTE 5507299, member: 9609"]cygnus will have probably set in the north west by now

View attachment 447808
that red one high in the image is Beetlejuice - you will probably have heard of that one.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, just went out to take another look - red.