Diagram caption: The constellation Canis Major along with its bright stars and its surrounding constellations. Canis Major is surrounded by (going clockwise from the top): Monoceros, Lepus, Columba and Puppis. The constellation is dominated by Sirius, the star which appears brightest in the night sky, which far outshines all of the other stars in the constellation.

Canis Major lies just south of the celestial equator and is visible from all of the southern hemisphere as well as equatorial and temperate regions of the northern hemisphere. Sirius is visible from all but the most arctic regions. Canis Major is most visible in the evenings in late winter in the northern hemisphere and late summer in the southern hemisphere.

The open star clusters M41, NGC 2360 and NGC 2362 lie in the constellation. These are marked with yellow circles.

The y-axis of this diagram is in degrees of declination with north as up and the x-axis is in hours of right ascension with east to the left. The sizes of the stars marked here relate to the star's apparent magnitude, a measure of its apparent brightness. The larger dots represent brighter stars. The Greek letters mark the brightest stars in the constellation. These are ranked by brightness with the brightest star being labeled alpha, the second brightest beta, etc., although this ordering is not always followed exactly. The dotted boundary lines mark the IAU's boundaries of the constellations and the solid green lines mark one of the common forms used to represent the figures of the constellations. Neither the constellation boundaries, nor the lines joining the stars appear on the sky.

Diagram credit: Adapted by the IAU Office of Astronomy for Education from the original by IAU/Sky & Telescope.

Diagram translation status: Not yet approved by a reviewer
Related glossary terms: 天狼星 , 天球坐标 , 天赤道 , 星座 , 疏散星团 , 视星等 , 赤纬 , 赤经（RA）
Categories: Naked Eye Astronomy

Diagram license: Creative Commons 署名 4.0 国际 (CC BY 4.0) Creative Commons 署名 4.0 国际 (CC BY 4.0) icons