Whenever you gaze upon the stars and constellations, it's easy to forget that you're seeing a three-dimensional picture. The constellations seem to be set against a black canvas for all of us to enjoy, but that's not the case.

The stars you see that make up the constellations are all at varying distances from Earth, from tens of light-years to thousands of light-years away. There's no way you can travel in a spaceship to the constellation Orion the Hunter or Ursa Major the Big Bear.

So when you see remarkable alignments of stars, like the three stars in a row that make up Orion's belt, you have to be even more impressed. I know I am.

Another incredible "accidental" alignment of stars is the Winter Triangle. It's a perfect equilateral triangle of three bright stars from three separate constellations. It's available in the southeast Butler skies these chilly February evenings, and all three stars are bright enough to see even in light-polluted skies. What are the chances of that?

At the upper right-hand corner of the Winter Triangle is the super red giant star Betelgeuse, the second brightest star in Orion the Hunter. In English, Betelgeuse roughly translates into "armpit of the great one." That's right, Betelgeuse marks Orion's armpit.

You can easily see that Betelgeuse has a distinct orange-reddish hue. Astronomically the star Betelgeuse is simply one of the largest single things you've ever seen! It's a massive star that pulsates in size like a giant celestial heart. It varies from 700 million miles to almost a billion miles in diameter. By comparison, our Sun is a super wimpy star, less than a million miles in diameter, and our own Earth is less than 8,000 miles across.

Sometime within the next million years, Betelgeuse will put on the ultimate fireworks show. It will explode as a colossal supernova so bright, like a giant halogen beam attacking your optic nerves from over 500 light-years away. It should be quite a display as Betelgeuse blows itself up, a fate that awaits all supergiant stars.

The next star in the Winter Triangle is Sirius, which happens to be the brightest star in the night sky and the brightest star in the constellation Canis Major, Orion's big hunting dog. Sirius marks an eye on the big doggy's head. As you can see in the diagram, it's at the bottom of the Winter Triangle. Just use Orion's three belt stars as a pointer down and to the right, and you'll hit Sirius dead on.

Sirius is the brightest star in our night sky mainly because it's so close, at least relatively. It's a little over eight light-years away, equating to about 50 trillion miles. It's a giant star but nowhere near the size of the goliath Betelgeuse. Sirius's diameter is about two and a half times the Sun's diameter and cranks out more than twenty-five times more light than our Sun. Sirius is a Greek name that translates to English as "The Scorcher."

Way back when, many civilizations believed that when Sirius was close to the Sun in the sky during the late summer, it teamed up with the Sun to make for some really scorching days.

The third star in the Winter Triangle is Procyon, the brightest star in the constellation Canis Minor, the little dog. To find it, simply look for the next brightest star you can see to the upper right of Sirius. Procyon is a little farther away than "The Scorcher," about 11 light-years distant, and is a little larger than Sirius, with a diameter of a little over two million miles.

Procyon resides in one of the poorest excuses for a constellation that I know. About all there is to the Little Dog is Procyon and a fainter star Gomeisa, just to the upper right of Procyon. At my star parties, I often call Canis Minor the little wiener dog of the winter heavens.

That's it, the Winter Triangle, three stars from three different constellations that physically have nothing to do with each other. Yet, from our view on Earth, they form an absolutely perfect triangle. I consider all of us lucky and blessed to see it!

CELESTIAL HAPPENING THIS WEEK: Later this week in the early morning twilight the wanning crescent moon will be passing near by Venus, Mars, and Mercury. Just look in the low southeastern sky.

Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and retired broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis/St. Paul. He is the author of "Stars: a Month by Month Tour of the Constellations," published by Adventure Publications and available at bookstores and adventurepublications.net. Contact him at mikewlynch@comcast.net.