Just across the Milky Way from Canis Major, leaping at Orion's shoulder like a young pup, is Canis Minor, the Little Dog. Its alpha star is Procyon, which means before the dog, alluding to the fact that it rises just before Sirius, heralding the appearance of the great Dog Star. Procyon itself is no slouch: with a magnitude of 0.35, it is the eighth brightest star in the sky.

Procyon is also the fifth closest of all the visible stars, residing at a distance of 11.3 light years. It is an F5 main sequence star twice the size of our Sun, and six times brighter, with a surface temperature of 7,000 ° C.

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