Its immense brightness is why its name, "Sirius," means "sparkling" in Greek. At a visual magnitude of -0.74, Canopus is the second brightest. It's in the constellation Carina and at 310 light ...

You know, after decades of pointing optics toward the sky, I consider myself a knowledgeable observer. But while researching the Pleiades a few months back, I was surprised to learn that it wasn't the ...