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Sirius is South at Midnight on New Year’s Eve

The brightest star in the night sky, Sirius, will be due south at midnight on New Year’s Eve. This is true every year.*

Depending on your perspective, this is a quirk / coincidence / evidence of something weird and wonderful. Whatever your perspective, it is something that is occasionally useful, and always fun, to know.

The easiest way to find Sirius is to ‘slide down Orion’s belt’.

How the sky appears, weather allowing, when looking South at midnight on New Year’s Eve:

* This is true every year and will be for many more years, but not thousands. This is because of a slow change in the way the stars appear in the night sky due to something called the precession of the equinox – or, in English, the Earth spins like a top, but it also wobbles around in a circle, like a top.


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How to Navigate Using the Stars

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The Future of Celestial Navigation

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