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Thu Apr 28, 2016 EMPTY SPRING SKY

Some parts of the sky have more bright stars than others. The stars are fairly randomly distributed, but it seems as though most of the really bright ones can be found in the winter evening sky. The evening skies of summer have some bright stars, too, but the fall sky and the spring sky are relatively empty of bright stars. This spring there are a few exceptions - the stars Arcturus and Spica, in the east and the southeast this evening; and the planet Jupiter, which can be found high in the eastern sky, below the constellation Leo the Lion and its brightest star Regulus, near the top of the sky. But this evening, most of the bright stars by far are actually holdovers from our winter sky - brilliant Sirius and bright Procyon in the Greater and Lesser Dogs, Capella in Auriga the Charioteer, Castor and Pollux in Gemini, the Twins, plus Betelgeuse and Rigel and the belt stars of Orion the Hunter.