“Orion with Sirius and Aldebaran above Verwood”
The night sky. A beautiful and fascinating thing. Colours always changing from various shades of dark blue to a very deep, mysterious black, sometimes showing glimpses of reflected light, touches of reds or yellows, altered by artificial light, fazes of the moon and many other little things. Because of this you can only see the sky properly while out in the middle of nowhere, far from urban lighting and even then you need a clear sky and a not very bright moon. And then is like someone sprinkled the sky with little lights in a beautiful pattern. Although it looks like random, there are the constellations, which as by magic can be seen by anyone, even without training. On of the most recognizable is the Orion with it’s hourglass shape. It is visible from both hemispheres of the Earth, being very close to celestial equator. The position depends on the time of the year and is not visible on the night sky all year round. The main features of the Orion (named after Orion, a hunter in Greek mythology) are Orion’s belt, a group of 3 bright blue stars, the head (a small triangle of three little stars), the club to the north from right shoulder (top left) and the shield, a group of six stars to the right. Except for the belt, the others are not always visible especially under artificial light. Hanging from the belt is the sword, consisting of two groups of multiple stars, Trapezium and Orion nebula.
The brightest stars are Betelgeuse (Alpha Orionis), a large red supergiant, the eighth brightest star of the sky and second of Orion and Rigel (Beta Orionis) a blue supergiant, the sixth brightest star of the night sky. Betelgeuse represents the right shoulder, assuming that the hunter is facing us and Rigel is the left foot. Bellatrix (Gamma Orionis) “Amazon star, a blue giant serves as left shoulder. Saiph (Kappa Orionis) is a blue supergiant, similar to Rigel, but appears much fainter, because emits mostly in ultraviolet and serves as right foot.
Most of the times, Orion appears visible with two other stars, Aldebaran from Taurus, an Orange supergiant to the upper right and Sirius from Canis Major to the bottom left.
The painting I did is inspired by a photo taken by me in February, in Verwood. Because of the street lights only the main stats, along belt and sword were visible, together with Sirius and Aldebaran.
For the sky I used cobalt blue, with a touch of cerulean, for houses I used a mixture of cobalt blue and neutral grey, street lights warm white with cadmium yellow and for stars cerulean blue with warm white, and cadmium red, with a touch of cadmium yellow for Aldebaran.
“Orion with Sirius and Aldebaran over Verwood”
Oil on linen.
30 X 40cm (12” X 16”)
