February 9, 2012
Look directly south about three hours after sunset and see if you can spot that large ring of stars which some have called the "Winter Oval". Start with orange Capella overhead. Then, working clockwise go to Aldebaran, Rigel, Sirius, Procyon, Pollux and Castor, then back to Capella. The oval is about sixty-five degrees tall, so it takes up much of the southern sky in winter. What you are looking at are the the bright stars in the disk of our galaxy, in the direction roughly opposite our Sun's motion.
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Updated September 1, 2011