The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of November 6, 2021

Saturday: Before you fall back on your bed tonight, set your clock back one hour to the real time. Daylight savings ends early Sunday morning at 2:00 a.m. This means one more hour of sky watching in the evening because the Sun will set one hour earlier. Ben Franklin proposed the idea of “saving daylight” by adjusting our clocks way back in 1784. Daylight savings time was first utilized during World War I as a way to save electricity. After the war, it was abandoned. It was reintroduced during World War II on a year-round basis. From 1945 to 1966, some areas implemented daylight savings and some did not. Also, it was not implemented with any uniformity as to when it should start and stop. The Uniform Time Act of 1966 codified the daylight savings rules. Some states would like to adopt daylight savings year around.

The CWU campus is mostly open. However, for fall quarter, the First Saturday Planetarium Shows will be online. The Physics Department is hosting the First Saturday VIRTUAL planetarium show today from noon to 1:00 p.m. CWU Teach STEM students Kendra Gardner and Grace Warren will present about NASA's James Webb Space Telescope and game based learning, featuring an interactive game they developed. The presentation will also include the electromagnetic spectrum and some celestial objects. There will be a virtual planetarium show on the first Saturday of every month for the rest of the school year. Stay at home, practice good physical distancing, and visit http://tiny.cc/sy3luz to attend online using Zoom.

Sunday: The Northern Taurid meteor shower peaks this week. The peak of the peak is the night of November 11/12. These are slow moving meteors that result in the occasional fireball. The Taurid meteor showers produce a few bright meteors every hour. The Moon will set at about midnight. These meteors appear to come from a point in Taurus the bull, near the open star cluster called the Pleiades. This point is about three fists held upright and at arm’s length above the east horizon at 8 p.m. You can follow this point throughout the night, as it will remain one fist above 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.

Monday: Mercury and Mars are very close together in the predawn sky this week. They are about a half a fist held upright and at arm’s length above the east-southeastern horizon at 6:30 a.m. Mercury is the brighter of the two. By Wednesday, they will be right next to each other in the sky.

Tuesday: While Stonehenge is an ancient burial ground visited by religious people for thousands of years, MIThenge is an 825-foot long hallway on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology visited by the Sun’s rays twice a year. Every year in November and January, the setting Sun lines up with a narrow window at the end of the long hall and the light shines down to the opposite end. This season’s alignment is from November 9-11. For more information, visit http://goo.gl/0hwFQf or visit MIT. In addition, challenge yourself to find a similar alignment in your neighborhood.

Wednesday: Venus is one fist above the south-southwest horizon at 5:30 p.m.

Thursday: Are you planning on opening your Martinmas gifts today? 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 do with 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. Also, according to an agricultural calendar, November 11 marks the practical beginning of winter.

Friday: Jupiter is about a two and a half fists above the south-southeastern horizon at 5:30 p.m. Saturn is a fist and a half to the lower right of Jupiter.

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.