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Constellation Visibility
May, 2004

A tilting, leaning Earth confuses the constellation view, making it a debatable issue.

Orion is not visible anymore in the night sky as it is following the sun with the sunset. If we were in a December position Orion should be almost on the opposite side of the sky as the sun but right now it would appear to be about 30° away.
Steve Havas

In a December position, Orion would be behind us in the night sky, as one starts to see it in the predawn in early September and loses it in the evening sky in late April or so. I recall on March 26, 2003 when I was first seeing Planet X as a winking red object to the right of Orion, it was a narrow window before this part of the sky dropped into the horizon, and soon became light polluted altogether in April. A June position points our N Pole toward the Sun and thus Orion is lost in the glare of the setting Sun as we turn into evening. A stalled Earth orbit with a lean toward Planet X is also a lean toward Orion, however, simulating the view we’d see going into Spring.
Nancy
 
Constellation views are more than what stands in the dead of night, looking out, and include a full 180° view sunset to sunrise, thus a good portion of the 360° view. In fact, for the Earth, the constellations visible from a hemisphere are the same throughout the year, except for the degree of light polluting the view! A constellation overhead in Winter from the Northern Hemisphere [Auriga] is visible in the nightime sky in the dead of a summer night.
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