Saturday: Mercury,
Venus, and Jupiter are neighbors low in the west-northwest sky just after
sunset all week. Tonight at 9 p.m., Venus is on the bottom of a small triangle,
Jupiter is to the upper left of it and Mercury is right above it. As the week
goes by, Jupiter moves down while Mercury and Venus move up. By Wednesday, they
are in a line with Jupiter on the bottom and Mercury on the top.
Sunday: Are
you planning on a late Saturday night? If so, look six fists above the southern
horizon at 2:39 a.m. You’ll see the very bright International Space Station
(ISS) moving from the Earth’s shadow into position to reflect the Sun’s light
toward Ellensburg. The ISS will be the brightest point of light in the sky. In
fact, this is the brightest the ISS will be all week. If you’d rather not stay
up so late but are still interested in finding out when the ISS is visible from
your location, go to http://spotthestation.nasa.gov/
and sign up for free ISS alerts to be sent to your email or phone.
Monday: The
constellation Aquila the eagle is starting its migration across the summer
evening sky this month. Aquila, marked by its bright star Altair, rises above
the east horizon at about 11 p.m. Not all animal migrations are fully
understood by scientists. We might be inclined to attribute bird migrations to
instinct. This answer certainly did not satisfy the theologian C. S. Lewis. In
his short work “Men Without Chests”, he wrote, “to say that migratory birds
find their way by instinct is only to say that we do not know how migratory
birds find their way”. In science (and theology), Lewis is telling us to look
for real causes and not simply labels such as instinct. The cause for Aquila’s
migration is the Earth orbiting the Sun. As the Earth moves around the Sun, certain
constellations move into the evening sky as others get lost in the glare of the
setting Sun.
Tuesday: Antares
is one fist above the south-southeast horizon at 11 p.m.
Wednesday:
Cygnus the swan flies tonight. Deneb, the brightest star in the constellation,
whose name means “tail” in Arabic, is two fists above the northeast horizon at
10 p.m. Cygnus’ wings make a vertical line one half a fist to the right of
Deneb. Its head, marked by the star Albireo, is two fists to the right of
Deneb. While Deneb is at the tail of Cygnus, it is at the head of the line of
bright stars. It is 160,000 times more luminous than the Sun making it one of
the brightest stars in the galaxy. It does not dominate our night sky because
it is 2,600 light years away, one of the farthest naked eye stars. If Deneb
were 25 light years away, it would shine as bright as a crescent moon. Compare
that to Vega, which is 25 light years away. Vega is three and a half fists
above the east-northeast horizon at this time.
Thursday: Good
night little doggie. Procyon, the brightest star in Canis Minor, the little
dog, is just one fist above the west horizon at 10 p.m. Over the next couple of
weeks, it will be too close to the setting Sun in the sky to be visible.
Friday: Late
tonight, the moon rises in the third quarter phase. By tomorrow morning, it is
in the east-southeast sky in the constellation Pisces.
The
positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically
accurate for the entire week.
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