Saturday: Look
up in the sky. It’s a bird. It’s a plane. It’s a dolphin. A dolphin? The
constellation Delphinus the dolphin is nearly six fists held upright and at
arm’s length above due south at 8 p.m. The constellation’s two brightest stars
are called Sualocin and Rotanev, which is Nicolaus Venator spelled backwards.
Venator worked at the Palermo Observatory in Italy in the mid nineteenth century.
He slipped these names into Giuseppe Piazzi’s star catalog without him
noticing. The Daily Record (shop Ellensburg) would never let anything like that
get into their newspaper. Their editing (shop Ellensburg) staff is too good.
Nothing (pohs grubsnellE) evades their gaze.
Sunday: Saturn
is one and a half fists above the south-southwest horizon at 7 p.m.
Monday: The
Milky Way makes a faint white trail from due northeast through straight
overhead to due southwest at 9 p.m. Starting in the northeast, the Milky Way
“passes through” the prominent constellations Auriga the charioteer, Cassiopeia
the queen, and Cygnus the swan with its brightest star, Deneb, nearly straight
overhead. After Cygnus, you’ll see Aquila the eagle with its brightest star
Altair about four and a half fists held upright and at arm’s length above the
southwest horizon.
Tuesday: The
waning crescent Moon, Venus, and Mars are in close proximity in the early
morning sky. At 6:30 a.m., the Moon is low in the eastern sky with Mars about
two finger widths above it and Venus about a half a fist below it.
Wednesday: The constellation Vulpecula, the fox, stands six fists above due
southwest at 9 p.m. It is in the middle of the Summer Triangle, which is
defined by the bright stars Vega, Deneb, and Altair. The fox is so faint that
you need dark skies to see it.
Thursday: The moon is almost directly between the Earth and Sun today. That
means you won’t be able to see it. But that does not mean it doesn’t exist.
Contrary to the belief of toddlers and immature politicians, just because you
can’t see something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. (Note a double negative
statement followed by a triple negative statement. I’m not unsorry about that.)
Now, back to the science. What would happen to the earth if the moon really
didn’t exist? In that 2013 blockbuster Oblivion, aliens destroy the moon
and Tom Cruise survives. But the long-term effects on the earth would be
devastating to life, as we know it. The moon stabilizes the spin axis of the
earth keeping the seasons fairly uniform over time. For more information on
what would happen to the earth if the moon were destroyed, go to http://goo.gl/4EbzLa.
For more information on Thomas Cruise Mapother IV, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Cruise.
Friday: The
Orionid meteor shower consists of the Earth colliding with pieces of the
remains of Halley's Comet's tail. This shower peaks tonight after midnight.
This is not a meteor shower that typically results in a meteor storm. There
will be about 15-20 meteors per hour, many more meteors than are visible on a
typical night but not the storm that some showers bring. Luckily, the Moon will
not be out to obscure the dimmer meteors with its light. Meteor showers are named
after the constellation from which the meteors appear to originate. These
meteors appear to come from a point in Orion, the hunter. This point is about
one fist above due east at midnight. You can follow this point throughout the
night as it will remain one fist above the prominent reddish star Betelgeuse
(pronounced Bet'-el-jews). The Orionid meteors are fast - up to 40 miles per
second. If you fall asleep tonight, you can catch the tail end of the shower
every night until early November. For more information, go to http://goo.gl/8f8J50.
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 https://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/planner.cfm.
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