Find orange Aldebaran in Taurus and explore the surrounding V-shaped Hyades. Aldebaran is closer to us and is not a cluster member. The wide arrangement invites a slow sweep rather than a tight close-up; binoculars bring out additional stars.

It beats Andromeda for a clearer pattern, but the Orion Nebula adds a more distinctive cloud-like target. Pause on the shape and compare it with the compact Pleiades. Our fourth place rewards easy recognition without treating every apparent neighbour as a physical companion.

Sources: NASA.

Image: NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/Digitized Sky Survey 2 · CC BY 4.0. Resized and JPEG compressed; original license retained.