Generalities: it is a constellation of the northern sky, next to the celestial equator and not far from the Big Dog and from Orion. The Little Dog transits at midnight in January.

Origins and mythology: it is one of the original constellations, which represents, according to the mythology, the second of  Orion’s  hunting dogs . As said before, these three constellations are in fact close to each other. Another interpretation also exists, according to which this constellation represents the dog Moera, belonging to Icaro, who died suicidal after the flight accident in which his master died.

Stars: the Little Dog contains only two stars under  magnitude 3. One of these is the bright Procyon, the eighth star of the whole sky for brightness. It is  white-yellow and 11 light-years far. Its name derives from the Greek pro-cyon, which means "coming before the dog", as it anticipates of about half an hour the rising of the bright Sirius. The second star is the white-blue Gomeisa , 137 light-years far.

Table of stars brighter than magnitude 3.5
 

Star	Proper name	Magnitude	Spectrum	Colour	Distance (light-years)	Notes
Alpha	Procyon	0.38	F5	white-yellow	11
Beta	Gomeisa	2.90	B8	white	137

Other objects: it doesn't contain any objects of the deep sky of particular interest.

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