Today: The Northern Taurid meteor shower peaks this weekend.
You’ll want to stay up late to see the most meteors because the waxing crescent
moon doesn’t set until about midnight so the late night sky will be moon-free.
Under the best conditions, you can expect about 10 meteors an hour with some of
them being bright fireballs. A few weeks ago, the related Southern Taurid
meteor shower produced many fireball sightings in the southwest United States. Meteor
showers are named after the constellation from which the meteors appear to
originate. These meteors appear to come from a point in Taurus the bull, near
the open star cluster called the Pleiades. This point is about six fists held
upright and at arm’s length above the southeast horizon at 11 p.m. You can
follow this point throughout the night, as it will remain one fist the V-shaped
Hyades Cluster with its bright star Aldebaran (pronounced Al-deb’-a-ran).
Meteors are tiny rocks that burn up in the atmosphere when the Earth runs into
them. These rocks are broken off parts of Comet 2P/Encke.
Sunday: “I’m a little teapot short and stout. All this week,
Venus is on my spout.” All this week, the bright planet Venus is on the spout of
the teapot-shaped asterism Sagittarius. It is one fist above the
south-southwest horizon at 5 p.m.
Monday: We wish you a Merry Martinmas. We wish you a Merry
Martinmas. We wish you a Merry Martinmas. And a happy Monday. Martinmas is a
holiday in many parts of the world commemorating Saint Martin of Tours. He was
buried on November 11, 397. What does this have to astronomy? Not much except
that the celebration on November 11 often doubles as a cross-quarter day
celebration, a day that is halfway between an equinox and a solstice.
Tuesday: Jupiter is one and a half fists above the
east-northeast horizon at 10 p.m.
Wednesday: Imagine Opie and Andy Taylor walking down the
dirt path at night to that fishing hole in the sky. They’d probably be looking
to catch Pisces, the two fish already conveniently tied together with two
ropes. The ropes are connected at the star Alrescha, Arabic for “the cord”.
Alrescha is four and a half fists above due south at 10:30 p.m. The fish are
attached to lines of stars that branch out at one o’clock and three o’clock
from Alrescha. By the way, “The Fishing Hole”, The Andy Griffith Show’s theme
song, was rated the 20th best TV theme song of all time by ign.com. That’s too
low of a rating in my opinion.
Thursday: Have you even seen a Black Hole? Neither have
scientists. But they have seen the effects of a Black Hole. Black holes have a
strong gravitational influence on anything that passes close to them, including
light. Cygnus X-1, the first Black Hole candidate ever discovered, is six fists
above the west horizon at 7 p.m., in the middle of the neck of Cygnus the swan.
NASA launched the Chandra X-ray observatory in 1999 to study black hole
candidates and other high energy events.
Friday: I am guessing that some of you don’t like the line
of reasoning from Thursday: that seeing the effects of a Black Hole is good
enough to claim there are Black Holes. You have never seen the wind. But, you
have seen the effects of the wind. And no Ellensburg resident doubts the
existence of the wind.
The positional information in this column about stars and
planets is typically accurate for the entire week.
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