This week’s full moon was a reminder on cold winter nights to take the time to look outside. It’s easy, in the darkness of the late afternoon, to cozy up indoors. But there’s something about the additional light of the full moon that makes it feel more inviting — maybe something akin to sunlight.

The only problem with the full moon is that it makes it harder to see the stars, and winter stars are some of the most clear and beautiful. It took getting out of Maine briefly to a warmer place to remind me that, while it is chilly here, winter is a good time to enjoy the night sky.

One of the neat things to contemplate when looking at the stars is both how constant and how changing they are. In looking out over the horizon, the position of the stars shifts with the seasons and also, of course, shifts with your location. But with a little knowledge of what happens in which direction, they can prove to be a very good guide as to where you are. This specific positioning has been used by mariners through the centuries and all over the world.

While many specific stars may be difficult to identify, there are certain fixtures of the sky that stand out. There are those easy to spot in every season like the Big Dipper and the North Star — an obvious beacon of direction. And there are those that are unique to a season either for their visibility or their position. For example, Orion, which usually is high in the sky, rises low in the east in the winter and looks like he is pointing his bow into the horizon.

I would usually stop there, but I recently learned that Orion is part of a bigger constellation group that is known as the “winter football.” This is the type of football I am more interested in than the actual sport, to be honest. I found out about the starry winter football while wondering what that super bright star beneath Orion was and, rather than using a sextant or other tools that mariners have used through time, I pointed my iPhone to the sky and it told me exactly what I was looking at.

The winter football is also described in a great book, “100 Things to See in the Night Sky,” which outlines what is special about each of the stars and constellations. Sirius, the super bright star I identified, is super bright because it is super young, as stars go. It’s the seventh closest star beyond the sun at only 8.6 lightyears away. Then there are Castor and Pollux, the twins that make up Gemini, which are not outstanding for their brightness but for their paired formation. There are several others that, when connected, make up the shape of a football.

One other remarkable winter night sky feature is Jupiter, a planet that doesn’t always stand out the rest of the year but is prominent in the colder months. It is actually twice as bright as Sirius, so it really stands out even though it is 400 million miles away. Apparently, with a telescope, you can see the bands that wrap around it as well as its signature Great Red Spot — and sometimes even its moons when they cast a shadow on the planet.

There is also the Earth’s moon. This month’s full moon is known as the wolf moon, named after the howling winter wolves. One of the neatest things about the sun going down so early is to be able to catch the sunset and the moonrise at the same time in the late afternoon. If you’re able to get out on the water for this, or the Mere Point Boat launch is also a good local place to watch it, you can see the transition from sun to moon all happening in the same sky.

I’m sure there are many other winter night sky sightings and happenings that I have missed. But I hope to learn a little bit more this winter. It is a way of appreciating not just what nature is doing at this time of year but also the information held in the night sky that helps us to place ourselves in the world — and has helped those on or near the water to do the same for centuries before.

Susan Olcott is the director of strategic partnerships at Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association.