They wondered out loud if those three stars were the belt stars of Orion. With all of the star parties we are involved in, there are probably a lot of folks asking the same types of questions and making incorrect assumptions. Well, I like to show off a group of stars which can help to answer some of these questions. Well placed in the autumn and spring skies is the famous asterism of the Big Dipper. The middle star in the handle is Mizar and it has a nice 4th magnitude companion, Alcor, lying only 12 arc seconds away.
Most people can see the pair with their unaided eyes.
In the low power field of a scope, the pair fit into the field nicely. Now, the folks can observe with the telescope and then look up at the pair and really see how little of the night sky the scope displays. Mizar is clearly a binary when observed telescopically. As a matter of fact, it was the first known double star and was discovered by Riccioli in 1650. A type stars with the primary shining at magnitude 2.4 while the secondary is at 4.0.