23/11/2025
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The Winter Circle over Old Wardour Castle early Friday morning 🕌✨🏹⭕️
Old Wardour Castle is a ruined 14th-century castle at Wardour, on the boundaries of the civil parishes of Tisbury and Donhead St Andrew in the English county of Wiltshire, about 15 miles west of Salisbury.
The Winter Circle (or Hexagon) is a large circular pattern, made of some of the brightest stars in the Northern Hemisphere’s winter sky (or the Southern Hemisphere’s summer sky). It isn’t a constellation. It’s an asterism, or prominent group of stars that form a noticeable pattern. In addition, the Winter Circle has a smaller asterism inside it, called the Winter Triangle.
Plus in 2025 the planet Jupiter lies inside the Winter Circle and Mars is nearby.
Strictly speaking, you’ll see this circular pattern of 1st-magnitude stars – the brightest stars in our sky – from six different constellations: Rigel in Orion the Hunter, Aldebaran in Ta**us the Bull, Capella in Auriga the Charioteer, Pollux (and its forever companion Castor) in Gemini the Twins, Procyon in Canis Minor the Lesser Dog and Sirius in Canis Major the Greater Dog. Also, an additional 1st-magnitude star, Betelgeuse in Orion the Hunter, lies toward the center of the Circle.
Sky 10 x 180s F4 iso640 RGB + 10 x 180s F4 iso1600 HA Canon R5a/Sigma 20mm Art
Foreground 120s F4 iso320 Sony a7R5/Sigma 20mm DG DN
