- CANOPUS (Alpha Carinae). As northerners drive south on winter vacations, if they are familiar with the sky they encounter something of a surprise. Just below the sky’s brightest star, Canis Major’s Sirius, is the SECOND brightest star, Canopus, 30 degrees and almost exactly south of Mirzam, one of Sirius’s announcing star.
Although the scythe isn’t pre-eminent among the weapons of war, anyone who has been on the wrong end of, say, a peasants’ revolt will know that in skilled hands it is fearsome.
Terry Pratchett, Mort