Newbie question about a celestial body

okay topic sounds a bit strange but i'm an absolute beginner as regards star watching so all talk of constellations and astral events go right over my head (no pun intended) and this is problaly the wrong forum for this post but here i go. i've been looking at the skies over the past few months (through bins) and i've noticed a few things as the months go by.

theres a bright light to the south south west of me (i'm in Lucan and observed at approx 8.30 this evening) that i have only noticed this past few days and i'm wondering what it is. i dont remember seeing it before now. what is it? is it a star ? or is it man made? its really bright and twinkling like mad and i swear i can see different colurs in it?

also to the east of it there are three stars close together and in an almost straight line that i think is amazing for no other reason than their symmetery

and on last one there is a red 'star' that is almost overhead - it used to be quite bright but has dimmed over the past month or so. what is that? theres a constellation that is close by it (NE) and took my breath away when i first looked at it through binoculars though i think i need to get an adaptor for my tripod as its hard to watch for any length of time.

Joxer - sounds like the bright star is Sirius (the Dog Star) - very bright and shows mad twinkling colours.

The three stars in a line are Orion's belt - Orion is one of the best recognised constellations and one of the most photographed.

As for the red star overhead, I think that's probably Mars which is putting on a good show at the moment.

Hope this helps - if I'm wrong, someone will correct me soon enough

Sounds about right to me. That's what I came up with too.

thanks for that Lads.

I had a feeling that the three stars was Orions belt but just wasnt sure- when i was a young fella i read up on the constellations so must've retained some of that info - similarly Mars overhead i wasnt sure of but its great to get confirmation.

oh yeah my directions were somewhat off, the gathering of stars i referred to as a constellation is North West of orions belt and Sirius at the time I observed is South Sotuh East [i'm usually good at directions]

this stuff sure drags you in dosent it? off to buy some books now i suppose

The gathering of stars NW of Orion's belt (directly W of Mars) was probably the Plieades.

There are three dimmer stars hanging down from the E side of Orion's belt, known as his sword. Train your binoculars on the middle star of the sword for a real treat (hint: it's not a star).

Cheers,
-- Jeff.

Hi Joxer66, welcome to the boards!

I'd highly recommend you install Stellarium, that will show you what's in the sky where at any time. Dead handy program. It's also free and cross-platform so works on Windows, Mac & Linux. You can get it from www.stellarium.org

Regards,

Bart.