Wednesday, February 28, 2018

The Ellensburg WA sky for the week of 3/3/18

Saturday: The CWU Physics Department and the College of the Sciences is hosting its first Saturday planetarium show today from noon to 1 pm. Dr Cassie Fallscheer will give a presentation about what can be seen in the spring sky this year. There will be a show at noon on the first Saturday of every month hosted by different CWU astronomers and astronomy educators. The planetarium is room 101 in Science Phase II, just off the corner of 11th and Wildcat Way, H-11 on the campus map found at https://www.cwu.edu/facility/campus-map. 
The planets Mercury and Venus are as close together in the night sky as they are going to get for this orbital cycle. At 6:30 p.m., they are less than a pinky thickness from each other a half a fist held upright and at arm's length above the west horizon. Venus is the much brighter of the two. 

Sunday: It is often said that Earth is a water world because about 70% of the Earth’s surface is covered by water. What would it look like if all that water on the surface were gathered up into a ball? That “ball” would be about 700 km in diameter, less than half the diameter of the Moon. The Astronomy Picture of the day shows us right here https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120515.html. 

Monday: The bright star Spica is the first stop on the Moon's Morning March Tour.  Spica is about one fist to the lower left of the Moon at 6:00 a.m. 

Tuesday: Avast ye matey. Swab the poop deck. Pirates love astronomy. In fact, the term “poop” in poop deck comes from the French word for stern (poupe) which comes for the Latin word Puppis. Puppis is a constellation that represents the raised stern deck of Argo Navis, the ship used by Jason and the Argonauts in Greek mythology. Argo Nevis was an ancient constellation that is now divided between the constellations Puppis, Vela and Carina. The top of Puppis is about a fist and a half to the left of the bright star Sirius low in the southern sky at 9 p.m. Zeta Puppis, the hottest, and thus the bluest, naked eye star in the sky at 40,000 degrees Celsius is near the uppermost point in Puppis. 

Wednesday: Jupiter, next up on the Moon's Morning March Tour, is about a half a fist to the lower right of the moon at 6 a.m. 

Thursday: The bright star Antares is one fist below the Moon at 6 p.m. While it is below the Moon is altitude, it is well above the Moon in size. Antares is a red supergiant with 400 times the diameter of the Sun. If Antares replaced our Sun in the Solar System, it would fill the entire Solar System nearly out to the planet Jupiter. 

Friday: Next week, the Moon visits Mars and Saturn in the morning sky. But you can visit them this morning. At 6 a.m., Mars is two fists above and a little east of due south. Saturn is about one fist to the left of Mars and two fists above the southeast horizon. 

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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