Month Best Visible
January
Hemisphere Visible
Northern and Southern
Orion includes the prominent asterism known as the Belt of Orion: three bright stars in a row. Surrounding the belt at roughly similar distances are four bright stars, which are considered to represent the outline of the hunter's body. Descending from the 'belt' is a smaller line of three stars (the middle of which is in fact not a star but the Orion Nebula), known as the hunter's 'sword'.
Orion's name derives from Greek Mythology, in which Orion was a gigantic hunter of primordial times. One story suggests that Orion was killed by a giant scorpion and the gods raised them both into the skies.
