The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of April 11, 2020

Saturday:  Most people reading this are used to seeing the Northern Hemisphere sky. What is it worth to you to see some highlights of the Southern Hemisphere sky? To see the brightest radio source in the sky? The grandest globular cluster? All it will cost you is a late night. At 1:30 am Pacific Daylight Time Sunday, the Sydney (Australia) Observatory Education Program Producer will give a telescopic tour of the southern sky over Facebook Live. You don’t need a facebook account to join. Just go th https://astronomerswithoutborders.org/gam2020-programs/online/5389-southern-sky-gems-facebook-live.html for more information.

Sunday: The Lyrid meteor shower peak starts next Sunday. But there will be increased meteor activity in the vicinity of the constellation Lyra until then. The meteors appear to come from a point to the right of the bright bluish star Vega in the constellation Lyra the lyre. This point is about three fists held upright and at arm’s length above the east-northeast horizon at midnight and close to straight overhead near dawn. Go to https://earthsky.org/?p=4478 for more information.

Monday: “Lately, I’ve been, I’ve been losing sleep. Dreaming about the things that we could be. But baby, I’ve been, I’ve been praying hard, said no more counting dollars. We’ll be counting 9,096 stars, yeah we’ll be counting 9,096 stars.” Luckily, artistic judgment prevailed over scientific precision in the OneRepublic hit “Counting Stars”. According to the Yale Bright Star Catalog, there are 9,096 stars visible to the naked eye across the entire sky if you are observing from a very dark site. In the northern United States, where a part of the sky is never visible, that number drops to about 6,500. In the middle of a small city at mid-latitudes, like Ellensburg, that number drops to a few hundred. No wonder someone has been losing sleep. Learn more about the star count at http://goo.gl/nt8d80.

Tuesday: The Moon will be passing beneath a line-up of Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars over the next three days. This morning at 5:30 a.m., Jupiter is less than a fist to the upper right of the Moon. Saturn is a half a fist to the left of Jupiter and Mars is a fist to the lower left of Saturn.

Wednesday: In this busy world, it is important to know what time it is. We have many devices that give us the time. A phone. A computer. A watch. But who has time to build a phone, computer or even a watch. Not you. But everyone has enough time to build a simple Sun Clock. All you need is a pencil, a compass and a print out of the clock template. Go to https://www.exploratorium.edu/science_explorer/sunclock.html for more information. Use that clock to tell you when it is 5:30 a.m. so you can go out and see Saturn a half a fist above the Moon.

Thursday: Astronomers are often fascinated with large objects. Planets that could hold 1000 Earths (Jupiter). Stars that would fill up the entire inner Solar System (Betelgeuse). Galaxies with 400 billion stars (Milky Way). But what about the smallest objects? One of the smallest stars is Proxima Centauri, the closest known star other than our Sun. It is about 12% of the mass of the Sun. Three years ago, astronomers announced the discovery of an Earth-sized planet orbiting Proxima Centauri indicating that even very small stars can have planets. The smallest theoretically possible star would be about 7.5% of the mass of the Sun. Any smaller and it could not support the nuclear reactions characteristic of stars. For more on small stars, go to http://goo.gl/EHBdOX.

Mars, an object that can hold two of Earth’s Moons, is a half of a fist above above the Earth’s Moon at 5:30 a.m.

Friday: The bright planet Venus is three fists above the western horizon at 8:30 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 https://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/planner.cfm.