Generalities: it is a constellation of the southern sky, dominated by the brightest star of the whole sky: Sirius, which shines of magnitude -1.4 and is characterized by other bright stars. This constellation transits at midnight at the beginning of January.

Origins and mythology: it is one of the original constellations, which  represents, according to the mythology, one of Orion’s hunting dogs . For this reason the two constellations are close to each other in the sky.

Stars: the Big Dog is the constellation  containing the brightest star of the whole sky, Sirius. This star shines of magnitude -1.4, it has white color and is 8 light-years far. Besides the bright Sirius, other three stars under  magnitude 2 are present: the blue Mirzam and Adhara and the yellow-orange  Wezea, which is over 3,000 light-years far. A fifth star is under  magnitude 3 and other six under  magnitude 4.

Table of stars brighter than magnitude 3.5
 

Star	Proper name	Magnitude	Spectrum	Colour	Distance (light-years)	Notes
Alpha	Sirius	-1.46	A1	white	8.8	The brightest star in the sky
Epsilion	Adhara	1.50	B2	blue	490
Delta	Wezea	1.86	F8	yellow	3050
Beta	Mirzam	1.98 (variable)	B1	blue	720
Eta		2.44	B5	white-blue	2500
Zeta	Furad	3.02	B3	blue	287
Omicron 2		3.03	B3	blue	2800

Other objects: it contains an interesting open heap, M41.

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