Saturday: Who can forget that memorable song by Three Dog Constellations Night, “The sky is black. The stars are white. Together we learn to find the light.” Well, maybe it didn’t go like that. Which is good. Because not all stars are white. Most stars are too dim to notice a color. But, two of the stars in the constellation Orion provide a noticeable contrast with each other. Betelgeuse, five fists held upright and at arm’s length above the south horizon at 10:30 p.m. is a red giant. Rigel, the bright star about two fists to the lower right of Betelgeuse, is a blue giant.
By the way, the three dog constellations are Canis Major,
the greater dog, found one and a half fists to the lower left of Orion; Canis
Minor, the lesser dog, found two and a half fists to the left of Betelgeuse;
and Canes Venatici, the hunting dogs, found low in the northeast sky. Canis
Major contains Sirius, the brightest star in the nighttime sky.
Sunday: The brightest planet Venus is a half a fist above
the southwest horizon at 5:30 p.m. Mercury is a half a fist to the lower right
of Venus.
Monday: Neptune is the dimmest planet in the Solar System
but tonight you can use Mars and a pair of binoculars to help you find it.
First, use your naked eyes to spot Mars two fists above the southwest horizon.
Neptune will be too dim to see. But, when Mars is centered in your binocular
field of view, Neptune will be just to the upper right of it. Even if you have
a small telescope, you can easily see them both in the same field of view. They
are about as far apart from each other in the sky as the quarter phase moon is
thick.
Tuesday: Listen, do you want to know a secret? Do you promise not to tell? Whoa
oh, oh. The Beatles certainly didn’t
write this song about the Barringer meteorite crater in Arizona. Astronomers
are studying this 50,000-year-old impact to learn more about our planet’s
violent history as well as the physics of impacts throughout the solar system.
If you’d like to be let in on some of these secrets, go to http://goo.gl/sqbBe.
Wednesday: Are you looking for a vacation
spot close by? One that is not to hot and not too cold? Or one that is “just
right”? Two years ago, astronomers discovered that the star Tau Ceti, one of
our closest neighbor at 12 light years away, may have five planets. One of
those planets orbiting the Sun-like star is in the so-called Goldilocks Zone
where the temperature is just right for having liquid water. You’ll want to do
some research before you travel there. Tau Ceti is two and a half fists above
the south-southwest horizon at 7 p.m. For more information about the discovery,
go to http://goo.gl/xcv0dl.
Thursday: You never see a giraffe on the ground in
Ellensburg. But you can look for one every night in the sky. The constellation
Camelopardalis the giraffe is circumpolar from Ellensburg’s latitude of 47
degrees north meaning it is always above the horizon. Don’t expect to be
overwhelmed by the appearance of the stars in Camelopardalis. The brightest
star in the constellation appears only about half as bright as the dimmest star
in the Big Dipper. However, the actual luminosities of the three brightest
stars in Camelopardalis are very high, each at least 3,000 times more luminous
than the Sun. Alpha Camelopardalis, a mind boggling 600,000 times more luminous
than the Sun, is seven fists above the northern horizon at 9 p.m.
Friday: Jupiter is two fists above the east horizon at 8
p.m.
The positional information in this column about stars and
planets is typically accurate for the entire week. For up to date information
about the night sky, go to http://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/planner.cfm.
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