This may sound strange, but Orion is my favorite constellation. I know a lot of people love it, but my reasons are odd...it was the first constellation my baby brother (who is now twenty-seven...) learned to identify.
See, my little sister and I were Girl Scouts, and we sold cookies every winter. Once we sold them, we had to go back and deliver them all. When you consider that I usually sold over three hundred boxes by myself, that's a lot of time spent in a car.
Since cookies were always sold in January or February and delivered in February or March, Orion was always up. And my little brother, who has always had an excellent memory and was very smart, learned to recognize it pretty fast. He would lean out the car window and yell, "Look Mommy, it's O'Brien! Look! Look!" If a four year old can recognize Orion's Belt, anyone can learn.
All that to explain why I love everything about Orion. But in the past few years, my husband I have been going to the Fernbank Observatory for public viewing nights. Since then, we've seen some really great views of the Orion Nebula and other bits of Orion through the thirty-six inch scope.
But this is really spectacular. See the bright star on the left? That's part of the Belt. I wish I could see it with my little telescope!
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