Still shining sedately with a yellowish-white glow high in the southern sky after sunset is the beautiful ringed planet, Saturn. Not too far south of Saturn you can find a little group of five or six stars that marks the head of Hydra the Water Snake, one of those curving streams of stars which suggested a celestial serpent to the ancient imaginations.
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Hydra is actually one of two snakes in the sky. Hydra represents a female snake; there is also a male snake named Hydrus that can be found curled in the far-southern sky.
If you extend an imaginary line from Denebola to Regulus in Leo and extended it as far again beyond, that will lead you to the head of Hydra. The bright star Procyon, in Canis Minor can also be used as a guide for finding Hydra's head, for it lies less than 10-degrees due east of Procyon (your clinched fist held at arm's length measures roughly 10-degrees).
Binoculars useful
The stars in Hydra's head make a rather attractive group in 7-power binoculars. One of them, the northernmost star in the circlet, Epsilon Hydrae, is one of the most outstanding examples of a multiple star system, astronomers having discovered no fewer than five stars here revolving about each other. Two-star and three-star systems are known to be common.
From there, if you have access to a clear and dark sky--and keeping in mind that Hydra's stars are for the most part rather dim--you can follow the scraggly stream of the Water Snake's body as it goes south and east below the Sickle of Leo, past the faint goblet-like star pattern of Crater the Cup and the moderately bright four-sided figure of Corvus the Crow, then south of the bluish star Spica before finally coming to end near Libra the Scales.
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