While there really aren’t any Christmas constellations in the sky any time of the year, there’s a wonderful sign of the season waiting for you in the early evening eastern sky right now.

It’s a bit of a challenge to find but not too difficult. It’s the Christmas Tree Cluster you can see with just a small telescope or even a decent pair of binoculars, and it really looks like a Christmas tree. It’s easier to see in the dark countryside, but even in light-polluted areas you should be able to spot it. Formally, in the astronomical books, it’s known as New General Catalog Object 2264, or NGC 2264 for short. It’s so cute, and hopefully it will add to your holiday spirit.

After 7:30 or so it will be high enough above the eastern horizon to start your search. The Christmas Tree Cluster resides in a very obscure constellation called Monoceros the Unicorn, which looks more to me like a ham radio tower my Dad set up on top of the house I grew up in, much to my Mom’s objections. Forget about trying to truly see Monoceros. You don’t need to and it’s so faint, anyway. The best way to find the little Christmas tree is to use the bright constellation Orion the Hunter, perched diagonally in the southeastern sky. I know you’ve seen it before. It’s the dominant constellation of winter, containing the three bright stars in a nearly perfect row that make up the belt of the mighty hunter.

(Mike Lynch)

On the upper left corner of Orion is a bright reddish-tinged star called Betelgeuse that marks the armpit of the hunter. On the upper right corner of Orion is the star Bellatrix, not quite as bright as Betelgeuse. Draw a line from Bellatrix to Betelgeuse and continue that line to the lower left about 10 degrees from Betelgeuse. Ten degrees is about the width of your fist at arm’s length. Scan that area with your binoculars or telescope and you should eventually find it. Once you do, you’ll see the cluster of 20 or so stars arranged in the shape of a Christmas tree.

What’s odd, though, is that the brightest star is at the base of the tree, not at the top where you would expect it. The starry little tree will appear to point to the lower right in binoculars and some telescopes. However, most telescopes will give you an inverted view so the miniature tree will point to the upper left.

The Christmas tree shape of the cluster is arguably a pleasant coincidence. The stars just happen to be arranged that way from our view of them on Earth. Like most open clusters, this is a group of young stars that formed out of a large nebula of hydrogen gas, much like our sun did over 5 billion years ago. These clusters of young stars hang out together for several hundred million years until gravity from other surrounding stars breaks them up. My attached photo of the Christmas Tree Cluster was taken with one of the high-definition astronomical cameras and captured not only the cluster but also the nebulae around it. With binoculars or a small telescope, you won’t see the nebulosity, but you should easily see the stars that make up the tree.

The Christmas Tree Cluster (Mike Lynch)

The stars that light up the Christmas Tree cluster send their tidings of great joy from a long, long way away. They’re about 2,600 light-years distant, with just one light-year equaling nearly 6 trillion miles. Since a light-year is defined as the distance that light travels in one year, the lights we see from this Christmas tree tonight left those stars in about 600 B.C. They’ve been waiting a long time for you to see them!

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. Mike is available for private star parties. You can contact him at mikewlynch@comcast.net.

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After Richfield police received numerous 911 calls Saturday morning that a man was “dragging a dead body” out of an apartment and loading it into a vehicle, police gave chase until the man pulled over at an Edina hospital’s emergency room entrance.

An unconscious 23-year-old woman was in the back seat with a gunshot wound. Despite lifesaving efforts, she was pronounced dead.

The Richfield Police Department gave the following details about the incident on its Facebook page:

At about 3:12 a.m. Saturday, officers responded to 911 calls from residents at 7601 Knox Avenue South saying a man had loaded what looked like a dead body into a vehicle.

An officer in the area tried to pull the man’s vehicle over but the driver didn’t stop and there was a brief chase until the man stopped at the emergency entrance at M Health Fairview Southdale Hospital in Edina, where the woman was discovered in the back seat.

The man was taken into custody.

No further details were available. The incident remains under active investigation.

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Taking advantage of the subzero temperatures, volunteers flooded the Groveland Ice Rinks at St. Clair and Prior avenues in St. Paul on Saturday.

The volunteers, along with the nonprofit organization that manages the ice, will create two hockey rinks, a general skating rink, a pond hockey ring and a long and short skating oval. The Groveland Ice Rinks also feature a warming house and skate rentals.

Volunteers flood the Groveland Ice Skating Rinks to prepare two hockey rinks, a general skating rink, a pond hockey rink and long and short skating ovals. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

While Saturday’s high temperature in the Twin Cities reached just 3 above zero, a rapid warm-up is expected after the weekend. Tuesday could see a high of 40.

For more information on the skating season, go to grovelandicerinks.org.

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RIVER FALLS, Wisc. – Before a crowd that was wrapped, bundled and swaddled against temperatures that dipped below zero, the University of Wisconsin-River Falls football team defeated Illinois’ Wheaton College 46-21 on Saturday to advance to the NCAA Division III semifinals.

The third-ranked Falcons, making their first quarterfinal appearance, got 407 passing yards and four touchdowns from quarterback Kaleb Blaha, a Coon Rapids product. The right-hander, who doesn’t use a glove on his throwing hand, completed 32 of 50 passes against the Thunder, which received an at-large playoff berth.

“What stood out today was his composure,” said sixth-year Wheaton coach Jesse Scott of Blaha, a player often known for his running, but who carried only seven times for 7 yards Saturday.

“He does not seem to get frazzled, and he’s clearly comfortable with the decisions he’s going to be presented with.”

River Falls (12-1) hosts No. 8 and Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins (12-1) on Dec. 20. Ninth-ranked John Carroll (12-1) from Ohio and top-seeded North Central of Illinois (13-0) meet in the bracket’s other semifinal. The championship game is scheduled for Sunday, Jan. 4, in Canton, Ohio, adjacent to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

“All week, everyone told us what how difficult it was going to be with the cold,” said 15th-year River Falls coach Matt Walker, whose team won the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference title outright for the first time since 1985. He prohibited anyone in the program from saying the word cold during the week’s preparations.

“Obviously, it was going to be cold, so shut up about it and prepare,” Walker said with a smile. “We had a full plan to rotate players in and out of (sideline warming) tents and (reserve) players who were responsible for wearing guys’ coats and keeping them warm while they were on the field.

“We wanted to throw the ball in conditions some people thought we couldn’t do it in.”

Wheaton tight end Ben Juska said the playing conditions weren’t as bad as he’d feared. He used two pairs of tights and socks and ducked into the tents after every drive but rapid breathing proved painful.

“My body was fine, but my lungs were on fire,” Juska said.

River Falls opened the scoring three minutes into the game when Woodbury product Blake Rohrer caught an 11-yard Blaha pass. The hosts led 20-7 at halftime. The field and stands emptied rapidly for intermission, the announced crowd of 1,849 seeking a building or running to a vehicle in which to warm up.

Wheaton pulled within 20-14 just two minutes into the third quarter on a 44-yard touchdown pass from Mark Forcucci to Caleb Titherington and Mateo Jesch’s extra point. However, the hosts scored four of the afternoon’s final five touchdowns and finished with 507 offensive yards while allowing 429.

Defensive back Taylor Sussner, a Chaska native, led River Falls with 11 tackles, a forced fumble and one of his team’s two interceptions. Trevor Asher topped the Falcons with 106 yards and three touchdowns in 22 carries. Rohrer led Falcons receivers with seven receptions for 119 yards and a touchdown.

Forcucci completed 27 of 53 pass attempts for 331 yards and a touchdown and had two passes intercepted. Matt Crider led the Thunder (11-3) with 68 rushing yards and a touchdown in 18 carries. Titherington caught nine passes for 153 yards and a touchdown.

Notes: River Falls punted twice and Wheaton once… Radio color commentator Mike Farley is a former Falcon and the son of former River Falls coach Mike Farley, Sr., who guided the program from 1970-89. He recalled a 1971 victory over Wisconsin-Whitewater with temperatures similar to Saturday’s numbers. “I was a ball boy and at halftime, I went and laid in a sleeping bag inside my folks’ van to get out of the wind,” he said…. No players competed with bare arms and Walker said he prohibited such action, calling it “fake tough”… One of Wheaton’s three buses wouldn’t start after the game, meaning roughly 40 people and assorted equipment faced a delayed return to suburban Chicago and the town that claims the late NFL star Red Grange as a native son. The “Galloping Ghost” played professionally from 1925-34.

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