The brightest stars in the Northern Hemisphere's winter sky form the shape of the Winter Circle, or Hexagon, that will help you locate 6 constellations.
The galactic anticenter is opposite the Milky Way's center from our viewpoint on Earth. The closest bright star to the anticenter is Taurus the Bull's Elnath.
November 3 brings the year's earliest solar noon - that is, earliest midday - by nature's clock. It's a harbinger of the Northern Hemisphere's earliest sunset.
The Dog Star Sirius reaches its highest point in the sky around midnight every New Year's Eve. For this reason, it could also be called the New Year's star.
Bruce McClure served as lead writer for EarthSky's popular Tonight pages from 2004 to 2021, when he opted for a much-deserved retirement. He's a sundial aficionado, whose love for the heavens has taken him to Lake Titicaca in Bolivia and sailing in the North Atlantic, where he earned his celestial navigation certificate through the School of Ocean Sailing and Navigation. He also wrote and hosted public astronomy programs and planetarium programs in and around his home in upstate New York.