The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of December 21, 2024

Saturday: At 1:20 a.m., Pacific Standard Time, the Sun reaches its lowest point in the sky with respect to the background stars. This point is called the Winter Solstice. During the day that the Sun reaches this point, your noontime shadow is longer than any other day of the year. Also, the Sun spends less time in the sky on the day of the Winter Solstice than any other making this the shortest day of the year. Even though it is the shortest day of the year, it is not the day with the latest sunrise or the earliest sunset. The latest sunrise is during the first week in January and the earliest sunset is during the second week in December. The Sun is at its southernmost point with respect to the background stars on the day of the winter solstice. This means the Sun spends the least amount of time above the horizon on that day. However, the Sun's rise and set times depend on more than its apparent vertical motion. It also depends on where the Sun is on the analemma, that skinny figure-8 you see on globes and world maps. During the second week in December, the Sun is not quite to the bottom of the analemma. But it is on the first part of the analemma to go below the horizon. During the first week in January, it is on the last part of the analemma to rise above the horizon meaning that’s when we have the latest sunrises.

Sunday: Just before Christmas, you look for junk to clean out of your closets so you can re-gift it. I mean, so you can throw it out or recycle it. NASA’s Meter Class Autonomous Telescope on Ascension Island is a key tool in a program tracking about 22,000 pieces of space junk. Some of this junk is dangerous. The International Space Station occasionally performs debris avoidance maneuvers to keep its panels and sensitive instruments safe. For more information about the project, go to http://goo.gl/Kxgihd.

Monday: Venus is one and a half fists above the southwestern horizon and Saturn is three fists above the south-southwestern horizon at 6:00 p.m.

Tuesday: Mercury is one fist above the southeastern horizon at 7:00 a.m.

Wednesday: Where is the one who has been born King of the Jews? We saw Jupiter being eclipsed by the Moon in the east and have come to worship him” (Matthew 2:2, Bruce Palmquist version, informed by Michael Molnar). There are many theories as to the physical explanation of the Star of Bethlehem, the celestial object that guided the wise men to the location of Jesus. Some people think it was a recurring nova, a star that explodes. Some think it was a close alignment of bright planets. Some think it was a miracle that requires no physical explanation. In 1991, astronomer Michael Molnar bought an ancient Roman Empire coin that depicted a ram looking back at a star. Aries the ram was a symbol for Judea, the birthplace of Jesus. The Magi, or “wise men”, who visited the baby Jesus practiced astrology and would have been looking in that region of the sky for the king prophesied in the Old Testament. Molnar, a modern-day wise person, used sky simulation software to model the positions of planets and the Moon in the region of Aries. According to his model, Jupiter was eclipsed, or blocked, by the Moon on the morning of April 17, 6 BC. A book written by the astrologer of Constantine the Great in 334 AD supports Molnar’s theory. The book describes an eclipse of Jupiter in Aries and notes a man of divine nature born during this time. See https://goo.gl/o89A4o for more information.

Libra and Jupiter are visible in the early evening sky tonight. Aries is five fists above due southeast at 6:00 p.m. Jupiter is three fists above due east. The moon isn’t visible until tomorrow morning, one and a half fists above the southeastern horizon at 6:00 a.m.

Thursday: Did you get a telescope or binoculars for Christmas? The next item on your list should be a sky watching app for your phone. These apps will help you to get familiar with the constellations and bright stars. Then you can zoom into an area of interest and learn about objects that are visible through your telescope. I like SkySafari, a free app or low-cost iPhones app (depending on their promotions at the time). But there are many other good ones to choose from for little or no money. Go to https://www.lifewire.com/best-stargazing-apps-5086553 for seven short reviews. One of your first targets should be the Pleiades open star cluster. It is bright, easy to see with the naked eye and even more interesting in binoculars. It is six fists above due southeast at 8:00 p.m.

Friday: Aside from the Big Dipper, the northern sky doesn’t get enough love. Vega, the bright star in the constellation Lyra, is one fist above due northwest at 8:00 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. All times are Pacific Time unless noted.

The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of December 14, 2024

Saturday: Jupiter is less than a fist held out at arm’s length to the right of the nearly full moon in the eastern sky at 7:00 p.m. They will stay in this same orientation throughout the evening and into the late-night sky.

Sunday: Are you disappointed because you are not going anywhere for the holidays? Why not take a (virtual) trip to outer space using Google’s new visualization tool called 100,000 Stars. It shows the stars in our neighborhood in an accurate 3-D simulation. The Sun is initially at the center. If you zoom in, you can click on neighboring stars and learn more about them. Go to http://stars.chromeexperiments.com/ for the simulation. It works best on a Chrome browser.

Monday: One of those stars in our neighborhood, the bright star Sirius, is one and a half fists above due southeast at 10:00 p.m.

Tuesday: Today is the start of the Saturnalia celebration, an ancient Roman festival in honor of their god Saturn, the god of agriculture and time. The holiday featured a break from work and school, a public banquet, and private gift giving. Some of these customs influenced the secular aspects of Christmas celebrations. For example, after Sheldon hugged Penny on The Big Bang Theory, Leonard proclaimed, “It’s a Saturnalia miracle” https://youtu.be/yarNJnZw2yk. It would not be a miracle if you saw the planet Saturn today. It is three fists above the south-southwestern horizon at 6:30 p.m. The very bright planet Venus is one fist above due southwest at this time.

Wednesday: Mars is right below the moon, three fists above due east at 10:00 p.m. As the hours go by, the moon will move slightly eastward compared to Mars, making it look like Mars is moving past it in the race from east to west. This is a great night to see how the moon appears to move slightly differently across the sky compared to planets.

Thursday:  With the Sun as low as it gets in the Northern Hemisphere winter sky this weekend, you may wish it was a little more prominent. Every orbit, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has a close encounter with the Sun. Its last close encounter was in early October. Its next close encounter will be the closest one yet, passing just 3.8 million miles from the solar surface on Christmas Eve. It will pass through the boundary between outer space and the region where the Sun’s magnetic field has a tight hold on the plasma that makes up the outer layer of the Sun. Since the Sun does not have a solid surface, this is as close to touching the Sun as an object can get. It is analogous to “touching” a cloud. The cloud does not have a definite surface but there is a boundary between “cloud” and “not cloud”. For more about the mission plus short videos, go to http://parkersolarprobe.jhuapl.edu/.

Friday: Wow. The moon gets around. Now it is by the bright star Regulus at 10:00 p.m. Regulus is just to the right of the moon, one fist above the east-northeastern horizon. Like Mars and the moon on Wednesday, tonight you can see how the moon appears to move compared to planets. Spoiler alert: stars and planets appear to move very similar to each other compared to the moon’s apparent motion. This is because the moon is so much closer to the Earth than stars and even than relative neighbor planets such as Mars.

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. All times are Pacific Time unless noted.

The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of December 7, 2024

Saturday: Imagine Opie and Andy Taylor walking down the dirt path at night to that fishing hole in the sky. They’d probably be looking to catch Pisces, the two fish already conveniently tied together with two ropes. The ropes are connected at the star Alrescha, Arabic for “the cord.” Alrescha is four and a half fists held upright and at arm’s length above due south at 8:30 p.m. The fish are attached to lines of stars that branch out at one o’clock and three o’clock from Alrescha. By the way, “The Fishing Hole,” The Andy Griffith Show’s theme song, was rated the 20^th best TV theme song of all time by ign.com. That’s too low of a ranking in my opinion.

Sunday: Venus is a fist above the southwestern horizon and Saturn is three and a half fists above due south at 6:00 p.m.

Monday: The bright star Capella is nearly straight overhead at midnight.

Tuesday: The earliest sunset of the year in Ellensburg occurs today: 4:12 p.m. This seems odd because the shortest day of the year, the winter solstice, isn’t for about two more weeks. The Sun is at its southernmost point with respect to the background stars on the day of the winter solstice. This means the Sun spends the least amount of time above the horizon on that day. But the sunrise and sunset times depend on more than the Sun’s apparent southward motion in the sky. It also depends on where the Sun is on the analemma, that skinny figure-8 you see on globes and world maps. During the second week in December, the Sun is not quite to the bottom of the analemma. But it is on the leading edge of the analemma, the first section to go below the horizon. For a slightly better explanation of this, including a diagram, go to https://go.shr.lc/2NOMOQC. Or just go watch the sunset. But don’t stare at the Sun.

Wednesday: Jupiter is nearly six fists above the southeastern horizon and Mars is a little more than two fists above the eastern horizon at 10:00 a.m.

Thursday: While the days are getting shorter, the nighttime sky is actually getting brighter due to the greater use of low energy LED bulbs. While these bulbs use much less energy than incandescent or compact fluorescent bulbs, researchers think that people and communities are using more of the bulbs and leaving them on longer. This is increasing light pollution near cities. You can get more illumination on the subject at https://www.latimes.com/environment/light-pollution-latt-123.

Friday: The Geminid meteor shower peaks tonight and tomorrow morning. Meteor showers are named after the constellation from which the meteors appear to originate. These meteors appear to come from a point in Gemini the twins. This point is about four fists above due east at midnight tonight. You can follow this point throughout the night, as it will remain near the bright star Castor, the right-hand star of the “twin” stars Pollux and Castor. By 4:00 a.m., it is four fists above the southwest horizon. This shower is typically one of the best ones of the year producing bright, medium speed meteors with up to 80 meteors per hour under ideal conditions near the peak. This year, the moon will be near full, leaving the sky too light to see the dimmer meteors.

Most meteor showers occur when the Earth passes through the orbital trail of a comet. The broken off comet fragments collide with the Earth and burn up in the atmosphere. Astronomers had searched for a comet source for this shower since 1862 when the shower was first observed. Finally, in 1983, astronomers discovered the object that created the fragments that cause the meteor shower each year. To their surprise, it was a dark rock that looked like an asteroid, not a shiny icy comet. Astronomers named this object Asteroid 3200 Phaethon. For more information about the Geminid shower, go to https://goo.gl/f4qMqg.

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. All times are Pacific Time unless noted.

The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of November 30, 2024

Saturday: Is your favorite astronomy-loving relative asking for a telescope this Christmas? Before reaching for your credit card, read this guide to choosing your first telescope, available at http://goo.gl/5oXmGj. If cost is an issue, look no further than this article about low-cost telescopes https://goo.gl/8yyddy. These are not cheap telescopes. They are simple, low-cost, easy to use telescopes that your future astronomer will still use for quick observing sessions long after she has purchased a much larger instrument for richer viewing. If you want to give a gag astronomy gift to someone who really bugs you, give them a copy of this column. After such a dud “gift”, you’ll never hear from them again. And that may be the best gift of all.

Sunday: Lieutenant Worf, the Klingon Starfleet officer on Star Trek: The Next Generation, might say “Today is a good day to die.” But Deneb, the bright supergiant star in Cygnus the Swan would say “two million years from now is a good day to die.” This may seem like a long time. But, compared to the lifespan of most stars, two million years from now is as close as tomorrow. For example, the Sun will last about five billion years. Small stars known as red dwarfs may last trillions of years. Prepare your astronomically short goodbyes to Deneb tonight at 11:00 when it is about two fists above due northwest.

Monday: Have you been online shopping all weekend? Do you need an evening sky break? You deserve a big reward so make it a double. A Double Cluster. The Double Cluster, also known as h and Chi Persei, consists of two young open star clusters in the constellation Perseus. Of course, young is a relative term as these clusters are about 13 million years old. Each cluster is spread out over an area about the same size as the full moon. To the naked eye, the Double Cluster shines with a steady, fuzzy glow. Binoculars resolve dozens of individual stars in the clusters. The Double Cluster is five and a half fists above the northeastern horizon at 6:00 p.m., about a fist below the sideways “W” of Cassiopeia and three fists above the bright star Capella.

Tuesday: Venus is one and a half fists above the southwestern horizon at 5:00 p.m. Saturn is three fists above the south-southeastern horizon at this time.

Wednesday: It’s getting too cold to see frogs in the wild. But this is a great time to see frogs in the sky. Ancient Arabs referred to the stars that we now call Fomalhaut and Diphda as Ad-difdi al-awwal and Ad-difda at-tani. This means the first frog and the second frog, respectively. Both frogs are low in the southern sky at 6:00 p.m. Fomalhaut is nearly one and a half fists above due south. The slightly dimmer Diphda is two fists above the south-southeast horizon.

Thursday: While you were looking through your underwear drawer for clean socks, some citizen scientists were looking through sky maps obtained by robotic telescopes to find brown dwarfs. The project, called Backyard Worlds: Cool Neighbors, allows anyone with a computer and internet connection to search through thousands of images to find these strange objects that are midway between being classified as large planets and small stars. Some brown dwarfs can have surface temperatures of thousands of degrees Celsius, the recently discovered ones are cooler than the boiling point of water and may even have clouds of water vapor! Read more about the discovery and how you can participate in this project at https://noirlab.edu/public/blog/newly-launched-backyard-worlds/.

Friday: Jupiter is four and a half fists above the east-southeastern horizon at 9:00 p.m. Mars is one fist above the east-northeastern horizon at this time.

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. All times are Pacific Time unless noted.

The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of November 23, 2024

Saturday: We are just a few days away from the earliest sunsets of the year in Ellensburg, meaning it is getting dark as early as possible. (No, the earliest sunsets are not on the first day of winter.) Thus, it is a good time to learn how to quantify the darkness of the sky. First find the Great Square, the main part of the constellation Pegasus. It is six fists held upright and at arm’s length above due south at 7:30 p.m. Find the dimmest star that you can see inside or near the square. Then compare that star to the chart at  https://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/how-dark-is-your-night-sky/. The larger the magnitude number, the dimmer the star. When the sky is exceptionally dark, you can see more stars and more interesting deep-sky objects such as star clusters and nebulae.

Sunday: Mercury is less than a half a fist above the southwest horizon and Venus is about a fist above the south-southwestern horizon at 4:45 p.m.

Monday: “Hey baby! What’s your sign?”

“Ophiuchus, of course”

The Sun is in the same part of the sky as the stars of Ophiuchus from this week to mid-December. This is what astrologers mean when they say the Sun is “in” a constellation. Thus, if you were born between these dates, you should be an Ophiuchus. The fact that the horoscopes never list Ophiuchus is a major flaw of astrology. Astrology says that some of our characteristics are based on the location of the Sun at our birth. How can astrologers leave out three weeks from their system? That is like a scientist saying she can explain the results of her experiment every month of the year except early December. Ophiuchus was a mythical healer who was a forerunner to Hippocrates. According to myth, he could raise people from the dead. Maybe that is why he is ignored by astrology. Raising people from the dead is much less impressive than giving spot-on advice such as “Today is a good day to watch your finances.”

The bright stars of Ophiuchus rise just before the Sun. Rasalhague (pronounced Ras’-al-hay’-gwee), the brightest star, is just above the east-northeastern horizon at 6:30 a.m.

Tuesday: Deneb Kaitos, Arabic for whale’s tail, is two and a half fists above due south at 8:30 p.m. This is the brightest star in the constellation Cetus the sea monster. Or, if you are less prone to hyperbole, Cetus the whale.

Wednesday: Spica is right above the waning Moon crescent moon, two fists above the southeastern horizon at 6:30 a.m. This is a good opportunity to convince yourself that you can see stars other than the Sun during the day. Note the relative orientation of Spica compared to the Moon. Then, right after sunrise, look at the Moon with binoculars. You will see Spica in that same location compared to the Moon.

Thursday: Some of us have a lot to be thankful for on Thanksgiving. But, probably not as much as Andromeda had to be thankful for. According to Greek mythology, the beautiful princess Andromeda was chained to a rock next to the ocean. Cetus the sea monster was about to devour her to punish her family. Her mother Queen Cassiopeia and her father King Cepheus didn’t know what to do. It seemed that all was lost. But along came Andromeda’s boyfriend, the great warrior Perseus. Even though Perseus’ standing as the son of King Zeus and the slayer of Medusa was probably enough to win Andromeda under normal circumstances, Andromeda’s impending death-by-sea-monster was not a normal circumstance. So, Perseus drove his sword into the sea monster’s neck and killed it. This was the first time in recorded history that a set of parents actually welcomed an uninvited Thanksgiving visit from the boyfriend. Perseus is about five fists above the east-northeastern horizon and Andromeda is about seven fists above the east-southeastern horizon at 7:00 p.m.

Friday: Lacerta, the faint lizard constellation, is straight overhead at 6:00 p.m. It was named by the Polish astronomer Johannes Hevelius in 1687 to fill the space between the much brighter and well-defined constellations Pegasus, Andromeda, Cassiopeia, Cepheus, and Cygnus going clockwise from the constellation just south of Lacerta.

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. All times are Pacific Time unless noted.

The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of November 16, 2024

Saturday: Mercury will be as far away from the Sun in the sky as it will get during this orbital cycle. This "farthest away" point is known as the planet's greatest elongation. Since Mercury is in the evening sky, it is east of the Sun so this occurrence is called the greatest eastern elongation. This evening will be the best evening to observe Mercury for the next few weeks. Mercury is just above the southwestern horizon at 5:00 p.m. Over the next two weeks, Mercury will move toward the Sun in the sky. By December 10, it will be visible in the morning sky just before sunrise.

The Leonid meteor shower peaks tonight and tomorrow morning. There will be increased activity for the next few days. These meteors appear to come from a point in the constellation Leo the lion. This point is about five and a half fists above the southeastern horizon at 5:00 a.m. The Moon is just after full so its light will interfere with the dimmer meteors. The Leonid meteors are particles from the tail of Comet Tempel-Tuttle, a comet discovered by Ernst Tempel and Horace Parnell Tuttle in 1866. These are exceptionally fast-moving meteors – over 150,000 miles per hour! Go to https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/everything-you-need-to-know-leonid-meteor-shower/ to read everything you need to know about the Leonid meteor shower. As your mother might say, dress warm and sit in a comfortable chair for maximum enjoyment.

Sunday: Uranus is in opposition tonight. That doesn’t mean Uranus is spending the night saying, “no”. It means tonight is the best night of the year to observe Uranus. It is five and a half fists held upright and at arm’s length above due southeast at 10:00 p.m. You’ll need binoculars to see it. First find the Pleiades, a little cup shaped open star cluster a little more than five and a half fists above the southeastern at 10:00 p.m. Move the binoculars so the Pleiades is on the far left of your field of view. Uranus will be the brightest object on the far right of your field of view. Revisit that part of the sky for the next few nights. Uranus Is the point of light that will change position from night to night, moving rightward with respect to the background stars.

Monday: “It’s a wonderful day in the neighborhood.” Constellations can be considered neighborhoods in the nighttime sky. But the stars in those constellations are not necessarily neighbors in real life. For example, the bright stars in the constellation Cassiopeia range from 19 light years to over 10,000 light years away from Earth. One constellation that consists of real neighbors is Ursa Major. Or, more specifically, the Big Dipper. Five stars in the Big Dipper are all moving in the same direction in space, are about the same age, and are all about 80 light years from Earth. “Please won’t you be my neighbor?” Skat, the third brightest star in the constellation Aquarius is a neighbor to these five Big Dipper stars, all of which are about 30 light years from each other. They are thought to have originated in the same nebula about 500 million years ago. Just like human children do, these child stars are slowly moving away from home. Skat is about three fists above due south at 7:00 p.m. The much brighter Fomalhaut is a fist and a half below Skat. And it’s not fun being below Skat. 

Tuesday: Mars is less than a fist below the Moon, low in the east-northeastern sky at 10:00 p.m. They will stay in approximately that orientation throughout the night.

Wednesday: Are you thankful that you live in a solar system with multiple planets? You should be. A giant planet like Jupiter cleans up planetary debris that could have collided with Earth and hindered the formation of complex life. Any inhabitants of the planets orbiting Upsilon Andromedae are thankful for this, as well. Upsilon Andromedae, a star in the constellation Andromeda, was the first Sun-like star discovered to have multiple planets orbiting it. So far, all its discovered planets are giant planets like Jupiter. But the system is likely to also have smaller planets. The dim star, but certainly not its planets, is barely visible straight overhead at 9:00 p.m. Jupiter is three and a half fists above due east at this time. Saturn is three fists above the south-southwest horizon.

Thursday: Have you ever sat around waiting for a long-distance call from another state? Another country? How about another star system? In 2019, astronomers thought they heard a radio signal from a planet orbiting Proxima Centauri, our Sun’s nearest neighbor at about 4.2 light years away. This signal showed many signs of being extraterrestrial in origin, including coming from a specific location in the sky, having a pure tone, and changing in frequency like something moving exactly towards or exactly away from the Earth. However, a more recent analysis showed that the signal was more like a crank call. Read more about the discovery and undiscovery at https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/the-true-nature-of-the-candidate-et-signal-from-proxima-centauri/. Proxima Centauri is part of the three-star Alpha Centauri system, the third brightest star in the sky. You need to go down to the southern tip of Texas or Florida to see Alpha Centauri.

Friday: Venus is one fist above the south-southwestern horizon at 5:00 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. All times are Pacific Time unless noted.

The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of November 9, 2024

Saturday: 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 at about 4:20 pm. For more information, visit http://goo.gl/0hwFQf or visit MIT. While you are at it, challenge yourself to find a similar alignment in your neighborhood.

Sunday: Are you planning to open your Martinmas gifts tomorrow? 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.

You can get a BOGO - buy one, get one - solar system gift tonight. Saturn is right above the moon. They are three fists above the south-southeastern horizon at 6:00 p.m. They will remain close together throughout the night.

Monday: The Northern Taurid meteor shower peaks tonight around midnight. These are slow moving meteors that result in the occasional fireball. The Taurid meteor showers produce a few bright meteors every hour. The Waning Gibbous Moon will obscure the dim meteors until it sets at about 2:00 a.m. These meteors appear to come from a point in Taurus the bull, near the open star cluster called the Hyades. This point is about six and a half fists held upright and at arm’s length above the southern horizon at midnight. You can follow this point throughout the night, as it will remain one and a half fists to the right of 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. The source of this shower is the asteroid 2004 TG10. Go to https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/taurid-meteors-all-you-need-to-know/ for more information.

Tuesday: The bright planet Venus is about a fist above the southwestern horizon at 5:15 p.m.

Wednesday: Lieutenant Worf, the Klingon Starfleet officer on Star Trek: The Next Generation, might say “Today is a good day to die.” But Deneb, the bright supergiant star in Cygnus the Swan would say “two million years from now is a good day to die.” This may seem like a long time. But, compared to the lifespan of most stars, two million years from now is as close as tomorrow. For example, the Sun will last about five billion years. Small stars known as red dwarfs may last trillions of years. Prepare your astronomically short goodbyes to Deneb tonight at 7:00 o’clock when it is seven fists above the western horizon.

Thursday: Jupiter is four fists above the eastern horizon at 10:00 p.m. Mars is less than one fist above the east-northeastern horizon

Friday: Vega is three and a half fists above the western horizon at 8:00 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. All times are Pacific Time unless noted.

The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of November 2, 2024

Saturday: The two meteor showers centered in the constellation Taurus peak this week and next. That means there will be increased meteor activity in western Taurus, about five fists held upright and at arm’s length above the southeastern horizon at midnight. This is when the best meteor watching begins.

Before you fall back on your bed tonight, set your clock back one hour to the real time. Daylight Saving Time 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 Saving Time was first used during World War I 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 saving 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 saving rules. It also banished the “s” as the correct term is daylight saving time, not daylight savings time.

Sunday: Antares is right above the young crescent moon. Both are just above due southwest at 5:00 p.m. The elusive planet Mercury is one fist to the right of the moon.

Monday: The Southern Taurid meteor shower peaks tonight. These are slow moving meteors that result in the occasional fireball. The Taurid meteor showers produce a few bright meteors every hour. The waxing crescent moon will set before midnight, leaving the sky dark for the meteors. These meteors appear to come from a point in Taurus the bull, about two fists held at arm’s length to the right of the open star cluster called the Hyades. This point is about five fists above the south-southeast horizon at midnight. The “V” of the Hyades cluster points at the center of the Southern Taurid shower. 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. Go to https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/taurid-meteors-all-you-need-to-know/ for more information.

Tuesday: Venus is about a half a fist above the southwest horizon at 5:30 p.m., just to the right of the crescent moon.

Wednesday:  If you looked for Taurid meteors to the right of the Hyades, you may have wondered about the bright object to the left of the Hyades cluster. That is the planet Jupiter. You don’t have to stay up late to see it. It is two fists above the eastern horizon at 9:00 p.m. At this same time, Saturn is three fists above the south-southwestern horizon.

Thursday: Sirius, the brightest star in the nighttime sky, is a half a fist above the southeastern horizon at 11:30 p.m.

Friday: Is visiting Mars too unrealistic? How about America’s desert Southwest? Still not happening? Then just look at some photos from… from…. Hmmm. The photos at https://goo.gl/Elx7O8 look like they could be from either place. The Murray Buttes region of Mars, where the Curiosity rover has been exploring, looks a lot like the landscape of Utah. So much so that the Mars-based movie John Carter was filmed in the desert of southern Utah. Look for John Carter at your local video store. Listen to the soundtrack on your 8-track tape player. Then take a Polaroid selfie of you enjoying each experience. Mars is one and a half fists above the east-northeastern horizon at 11:00 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. All times are Pacific Time unless noted.

The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of October 26, 2024

Saturday: Saturn is two and a half fists held upright and at arm’s length above due southeast at 7:00 p.m.

Sunday: According to the “One world, group hug, love everyone” philosophy, political borders are human-made and can’t be seen from space so why can’t we all just get along. According to real world pragmatic discoveries, some human-made political borders CAN be seen from space. Since 2003, India has illuminated its border with Pakistan to prevent illegal crossings. In 2011, astronaut Ron Garan took a picture of that border from the International Space Station. For more information, including the photo, go to http://goo.gl/mY8xG.

Monday: Did you know that moons and dwarf planets can share similar features? The five largest moons of Uranus have the same heat signatures as the largest dwarf planets such as Pluto and Eris. That means they are relatively dense and don’t immediately radiate away all their daytime-absorbed heat at night. Read more about Uranian moons at https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/uranian-moons-are-like-dwarf-planets/. Uranus can easily be seen with typical binoculars. It is about a half a fist to the right of the open star cluster called the Pleiades. Move the Pleiades to the far left of your binoculars field of view. Uranus will be on the far right. Uranus is the object that will have moved over the course of a few nights.

Tuesday: Fomalhaut is one and a half fists above due south at 10:00 p.m.

Wednesday: Venus is a half a fist above due southwest at 6:45 p.m.

Thursday: Today is Halloween. If you need costume ideas, look low in the sky at 7:00 p.m. Arcturus is one fist above the western horizon. In The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Arcturus is home to giant ships called Arcturan Megafreighters and oversized megafauna like the Arcturan Megaleech and Arcturan Megacamel. Capella is one fist above the northeastern horizon. In the second season episode of Star Trek: The Original Series called Friday’s Child; the Enterprise goes to Capella IV to negotiate a mining contract for a valuable mineral. While there, they get tangled up with warring factions and a Klingon. These two stars might help you win the costume contest as you go dressed as Captain Kirk, a Klingon, or an Arcturan Megaleech. For more about stars featured in popular fiction, go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stars_and_planetary_systems_in_fiction.

Friday: Happy Celtic New Year! Many historians think that November 1, known for the festival of Samhain, was the ancient Celtic New Year’s Day. Samhain, Old Irish for “summer’s end,” was a harvest festival that may have contributed to some of the customs of our current “holiday” of Halloween.

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. All times are Pacific Time unless noted.

The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of October 19, 2024

Saturday: The Orionid meteor shower consists of the Earth colliding with pieces of the remains of Halley's Comet's tail. This shower peaks after midnight tonight and tomorrow night. 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. The Moon is just past the full phase, meaning it will obscure the dimmer meteorites that pass through the Earth’s atmosphere in the pre-dawn sky. 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 held upright and at arm’s length 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 https://earthsky.org/?p=27937.

Sunday: What time is teatime? Certainly not during an autumn evening. The constellation Sagittarius the archer, with its signature teapot shape, is sinking into the southwestern horizon. By 8:00 p.m., the handle is on top, and the spout is touching the horizon ready to pour that last cup of tea.

Monday: Jupiter will be about a half a fist to the lower right of the moon throughout the night. They rise in the east-northeastern sky just before 9:00 p.m. By midnight, they are three fists above the eastern horizon.

Tuesday: Venus is about a half a fist above due southwest at 6:30 p.m.

Wednesday: Mars will be about a fist below the moon throughout the night. They are about one fist above the east-northeastern horizon at midnight.

Thursday: Halloween is a week from today so make sure you load up on peanut clusters, almond clusters, and open star clusters this week. That last one will be easy (and cheap… actually free) because two of the most prominent open star clusters in the sky are easily visible in the autumn sky. The sideways V-shaped Hyades Cluster is two fists above due east at 10:00 p.m. Containing over 300 stars; the Hyades cluster is about 150 light years away and 625 million years old. The Pleiades Cluster is a little more than three fists above due east. It has three times as many stars as the Hyades Cluster and is younger. Compared to our 5-billion-year-old Sun, the 100 million year age of the Pleiades is infant-like.

Friday: Halloween weekend is a great time to celebrate the dead. Dead stars, that is. Black holes are and neutron stars are the result of super massive stars. But intermediate mass stars such as our Sun end up as white dwarfs. After fusing hydrogen into helium for most of its life and fusing helium into heavier elements for a relatively short period at the end of its life, the Sun will end up with a core of carbon and oxygen that no longer produces energy through nuclear fusion. Without the outward radiation pressure from fusion resisting the inward pull of gravity, the Sun will end up as a super-dense sphere of atoms in which the electrons are squished onto the nuclei. It will be an object with nearly all its mid-life mass but in a volume about the size of the Earth. The easiest white dwarf to see is in the triple star system called Keid, from the Arabic word “qayd” meaning eggshells. Learn more about Keid, also called 40 Eridani, including map of how to find it at

https://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/trick-or-treat-with-white-dwarfs/. At midnight (scary), Keid is a little more than two fists above due southeast. You’ll need a small telescope to see it. First find Rigel, the brightest star in the constellation Orion. It is one and a half fists above the east-southeastern horizon. Then use binoculars to find the right area. With Rigel at the bottom of your field of view. There should be a star near the top of your girls of view that is about one sixth as bright. This star is called Cursa. Next, move your binoculars up and to the right about one and a half field of view diameters. Look for two stars close together, each about one third as bright as Cursa. Finally, move your binoculars straight over to the right about one and a half field of view diameters. The lower of these two stars is Keid or 40 Eridani A. You’ll need a telescope to see the white dwarf, called 40 Eridani B.

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. All times are Pacific Time unless noted.

The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of October 12, 2024

 Saturday: Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS moved into the evening last week. It will be visible in the evening west-southwestern sky for the next two weeks. At 7:00 p.m., the comet will be about a half a fist above the western horizon. That will be difficult to see in the bright twilight sky. By the end of the week, it will be higher in the sky but dimmer. There is a map of where to find the comet right after sunset for the next two weeks at https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/get-ready-for-comet-tsuchinshan-atlas-the-best-is-yet-to-come/. The sky locations on the map are for 0 hours Universal time on the dates listed. That is about sunset Pacific Daylight Time the day before. So, the symbol labeled 14 corresponds to the sky location for about sunset on October 13.

Sunday: Jupiter is over one and a half fists above the eastern horizon at 11:00 p.m. That means that Jupiter’s moons can be seen tonight, as well. In 2022, NASA’s Juno spacecraft sent back some of the most detailed images of Jupiter’s icy moon Europa. For more about the images and the rest of Juno’s mission, go to https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-juno-gets-highest-resolution-close-up-of-jupiters-moon-europa. With a small telescope, you will be able to see all four of Jupiter’s largest moons at this time. Callisto, the most distant from Jupiter, is on one side of Jupiter, with Callisto being the farthest of all the moons. Europa and Io are on the other side, with Io being the closest of all the moons.

Monday: Saturn is less than a fist to the right of the moon throughout the night. They are three and a half fists above the southern horizon at 10:30 p.m.

Tuesday: Rho Cassiopeiae is the most distant star that can be seen with the naked eye by most people. It is about 8,200 light years away. That means that the light that reaches your eyes from that star left over 8,000 years ago, before the beginning of time according to the Byzantine calendar. Rho Cassiopeiae is six fists above the northeastern horizon at 8:00 p.m., just above the zigzag line that marks the constellation Cassiopeia.

Wednesday: You’ve seen all the top 100 lists: top 100 ways to bench press, top 100 Uzbek astronomers, etc. Now get excited for this week’s full Moon by reading about and finding some of the lunar 100. Go to http://goo.gl/ldGvH6. This list describes 100 interesting landmarks on the Moon that are visible from Earth. They are listed from easiest to see, starting with the entire moon itself at number 1, to most difficult (Mare Marginis swirls, anyone?). Stay up all night to binge watch the moon or just make a few observations a month. It’s your decision. It’s our moon. Start your viewing tonight at 7:00 p.m. when the Moon is one fist above due east. I suggest starting with Mare Crisium, the circular, dark, basaltic plain in the upper right-hand portion of the moon. Items such as Crisium were named "Mare" by early astronomers who mistook them for seas, instead of the hardened lava beds that they really are.

Thursday: 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.

Friday: Along with the not-so-subtle drug reference in their name, The Doobie Brothers could have made an astronomy reference in their song lyrics if they would have written: “Old Earth water, keep on rollin,’ Mississippi moon won’t you keep on shining on me.” Astronomers now think that some of the water on Earth may be older than the Solar System. The chemical signature of the water indicates it came from a very cold source, just a few degrees above absolute zero. The early Solar System was much warmer than this meaning the water came from a source outside the Solar System. For more information about the old Earth water, go to https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/news/earth-water-formed-billions-years-ago-before-sun.

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. All times are Pacific Time unless noted.

The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of October 5, 2024

Saturday: Saturn is three and a half fists held upright and at arm’s length above due south at 11:00 p.m. Jupiter is a little more than one fist above the east-northeastern horizon at this time.

Sunday: The Draconid meteor shower peaks for the next three nights with tomorrow night being the best. The meteors appear to come from a point in the head of Draco, the dragon constellation. This point is nearly straight overhead at 7:00 p.m. tonight. This point remains near the trapezoid-shaped head of Draco throughout the night. Unlike most meteor showers, this one is best observed in the early evening rather than after midnight. Call this the “early to bed” meteor shower. Draconid meteors are slow moving which means you will have an easy time differentiating true Draconid meteors, from Comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner, from the stray grains of dust that happen to enter the Earth’s atmosphere every day and night. Unfortunately, the moon is nearly full, meaning most of the dimmer meteors will be obscured. For everything you need to know about the Draconid meteor shower, go to https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/everything-you-need-to-know-draconid-meteor-shower/.

Monday: It is good to plan ahead while you have meteors on your mind so start thinking about the Orionid meteor shower. This shower, which consists of the earth colliding with pieces of the remains of Halley's Comet's tail, peaks on the mornings of October 20 and 21 but produces meteors from early October until early November. These meteors appear to come from a point in Orion, the hunter. This point is about two fists above the southeastern horizon at 1:00 a.m. You can follow this point throughout the night as it will remain near the prominent reddish star Betelgeuse (pronounced Bet'-el-jews). The Orionid meteors are fast - up to 40 miles per second. For more information about the Orionids, go to https://earthsky.org/?p=27937. 

Tuesday: “I’m a little teapot, short and stout. The galactic center, I pour it out.” (I’m a Little Teapot, astronomy version, 2023.) Despite its great size and importance, the center of our Milky Way galaxy and its giant black hole remains hidden to the naked eye behind thick clouds of gas and dust. By plotting the orbits of stars near the middle of the galaxy, astronomers have determined that the black hole’s mass is equal to about 4.5 million Suns. While you can’t see the actual galactic center, you can gaze in the direction of the center by looking just to the right of the teapot asterism in the constellation Sagittarius. This point is about a half a fist above the south-southwestern horizon at 8:00 p.m., in line with the moon in the sky.

Wednesday: 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 above due south at 8:00 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. Sort of like when you would sneak cookies into your parent’s shopping cart, hoping they would not notice.

Thursday: The Milky Way makes a faint white trail from due northeast through straight overhead to due southwest at 9:00 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 above the southwest horizon.

Friday: Venus is a half a fist above the southwest horizon at 7:00 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. All times are Pacific Time unless noted.

The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of September 28, 2024

Saturday: You learned about Cassiopeia last week. The astronomer Caroline Herschel discovered an open star cluster that looks like a rose over 200 years ago. This cluster, called Caroline’s Rose, is about 6,500 light years away and consists of about 1,000 stars that are one third the age of the Sun. Through binoculars, it looks like a fuzzy patch. At 10:00 p.m., find the star at the top of the sideways “W” known as Cassiopeia. It is six fists held upright and at arm’s length above due northeast. When that star is in the lower left portion of your field of view, Caroline’s Rose is in the center to upper right. For more information about Caroline’s Rose, go to https://stardate.org/radio/program/2020-09-09.

Sunday: Saturn is two and a half fists above the southeastern horizon at 9:00 p.m.

Monday: Since Halloween is a month away, the stores are filled with bags of candy clusters. Use this reminder to take time to look at a star cluster. The Hyades cluster is an open star cluster that represents the V-shaped face of Taurus the bull. It is one of the biggest and nearest star clusters with about 200 stars 150 light years away. The Hyades cluster was the first cluster to be the subject of detailed motion studies. These studies allowed astronomers to pinpoint the distance to the Hyades and provide important information about the scale of the universe. Aldebaran, about one fist above the east-northeastern horizon at 11:00 p.m., is a foreground star and not a part of the Hyades cluster.

Tuesday: Jupiter is one fist above the east-northeastern horizon at 11:00 p.m. By 1:00 a.m., Jupiter is three fists above due east and Mars is where Jupiter used to be, one fist above the east-northeastern horizon.

Wednesday: Need a caffeine pick-me-up? Make it a double. Need an astronomy pick-me-up? Make it a double double. Find the bright bluish star Vega, in the constellation Lyra the lyre, nearly six fists above due west at 10:00 p.m. Less than half a fist above Vega is the “star” Epsilon Lyra. If you look at Epsilon Lyra through binoculars, it looks like two stars. If you look at Epsilon Lyra through a large enough telescope, you will notice that each star in the pair is itself a pair of stars. Each star in the double is double. Hence, Epsilon Lyra is known as the double double. The stars in each pair orbit a point approximately in the center of each respective pair. The pairs themselves orbit a point between the two pairs.

Thursday: Four years ago, astronomers announced that they detected phosphine, a possible biosignature of life, in the upper atmosphere of Venus. Although the surface of Venus is inhospitable, astronomers have long speculated that the upper atmosphere could harbor life. Not Cloud City life from The Empire Strikes Back but maybe microbial life. Last year, astronomers concluded that the original scientists found the signature of sulfur dioxide, not life. Last year, the private company Rocket Lab published details about the first privately funded mission to another planet - their trip to Venus. The trip was originally scheduled to launch this year but has been delayed to at least 2025. This Venus storyline is an excellent example of science at work. In less than two years, science went from “we may have found a marker for life on Venus” to “it is unclear if we found a marker for life” to “we probably didn’t find a marker for life” to “let’s visit Venus to closely study the thing we thought was a marker for life”. Do an internet search of the words Venus and phosphine and read the articles to follow the story. To get yourself in the mood, go outside at 7:15 p.m. Venus is a half fist above the west-southwestern horizon at this time. Read more about the potential mission at https://www.space.com/rocket-lab-private-venus-mission-delayed-2025.

Friday: In 1987, the rock group Def Leppard sang “Pour some sugar on me, in the name of love. Pour some sugar on me, come on, fire me up.” In 2012, some European astronomers “found some sugar near stars, they were very young. Found some sugar near stars, out where planets formed.” Astronomers observed molecules of glycolaldehyde, a simple form of sugar, in the disk of gas and dust orbiting young binary stars. This is the first time astronomers have found this simple sugar so close to a star indicating that organic molecules can be found in planet-forming regions of stars. For more information, go to http://goo.gl/tfwy1.

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. All times are Pacific Time unless noted.

The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of September 21, 2024

Saturday: At 5:30 a.m. PDT, the center of the Sun crosses the celestial equator and passes into the southern sky. The celestial equator is an imaginary line that divides the sky into a northern and southern half. When the Sun is in the southern half of the sky, it takes a shorter path from rising to setting. It also does not get as high in the sky at noon. This leads to shorter days and longer nights. Since the Sun crosses the celestial equator today, there is an instant when it is equally in the northern and southern sky, called the north and south celestial hemispheres. This so-called “equal night” is given by the Latin word equinox. Thus, today is known as the Autumnal Equinox. However, the day and night are not of equal duration today. The sun rises at 6:48 a.m. and sets at 7:00 p.m. in the northern latitudes of the United States. At these latitudes, day and night are closest to equal duration on Tuesday.

Sunday: “There’s water in them thar craters,” frozen water, that is. There has been speculation since the 1960s and indirect evidence since the 2000s of water on the Moon. Three years ago, astronomers studied data from four earlier missions. They noticed that the light reflecting off the bottom of craters near the lunar South Pole showed characteristics of light reflecting off pure ice. The water likely came from comet impacts or other solar system objects with trace amounts of water ice. Last summer, the Indian Space Research Organization became the fourth country to successfully land on the moon when Chandrayaan-3 landed near the lunar South Pole to study the water there. Read more about it at https://www.space.com/chandrayaan-3-moon-south-pole-why-nasa-wants-to-go-too. The moon is one fist above the north-northeast horizon at 11:00 p.m.

Monday: To the people of Ancient Greece, the stars that are about five and a half fists above the northeastern and eastern horizons, respectively, at 10:00 p.m. were known as Cassiopeia and Andromeda, a mythological queen, and her daughter. But not all cultures imagined the same pictures in the sky. To the people of Polynesia, the stars of Cassiopeia and Andromeda represented a dolphin, called Kwu. Cassiopeia formed its tail, the brightest stars of Andromeda formed its fins, and its fainter stars outlined the dolphin’s body.

Tuesday: Ask someone which day in September has the same duration day and night. Go ahead, ask someone. Why are you still reading this? I can wait. If that person says the first day of autumn, they are wrong. Today, three days after the first day of autumn, is the date in which day and night are closest in duration. There are two main reasons for this. First, the atmosphere acts like a lens, bending light from the Sun above the horizon when the Sun is actually below the horizon. This makes the Sun appear to rise before it actually rises and appear to set after it actually sets. Second, fall starts when the center of the Sun passes through the point called the autumnal equinox. But the Sun is not a point. The upper edge of the Sun rises about a minute before the center of the Sun and the lower edge sets a minute after the center of the Sun. Thus, even if we didn’t have an atmosphere that bends the sunlight, daytime on the first day of autumn would still be longer than 12 hours.

Wednesday: Mars is less than a half a fist to the lower right of the last quarter moon at 6:00 a.m. Jupiter is to the upper right of the moon.

Thursday: Mnemonics are helpful for remembering astronomy facts. (Similarly, “Johnny Mnemonic,” the 1995 cyberpunk film, was helpful in getting Keanu Reeves’ career going.) After all, school children around the world are learning the order of the planets by remembering, “My very excellent mother just served us nine….” Oops, I guess that one needs updating with Pluto being classified as a dwarf planet. Well, here’s one that will not need updating for tens of thousands of years: the order of the stars in the Big Dipper. Because the nighttime stars are so far away from us, their actual motion through the sky, called their “proper motion” is not noticeable over even thousands of years. That is why the constellations have remained the same since ancient times. But two stars in the Big Dipper have a proper motion large enough such that in 100,000 years; the stars will no longer make a dipper shape. You can see this simulation at the American Museum of Natural History video found at https://youtu.be/sBfUBtdo8yo. Until then, you can remember the names of the seven dipper stars in order from handle to cup by remembering this helpful advice for teens: “AM, ask mom. PM, dad.” The stars are Alkaid, Mizar, Alioth, Megrez, Phad, Merek, and Duhbe. The Big Dipper is one fist above the northern horizon at midnight.

Friday: Saturn is exactly two and a half fists above due southeast at 9:00 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. All times are Pacific Time unless noted.

The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of September 7, 2024

Saturday: Saturn is in opposition tonight. That doesn’t mean that Saturn is stubborn. Opposition means that Saturn is on the opposite side of the Earth as the Sun. When an object is in opposition, it is at its highest point in the sky during the darkest time of the day. Thus, opposition is typically the best time to observe a planet. Saturn is about three and a half fists held upright and at arm’s length above due south at 1:00 a.m. It is nearly two fists above due southeast at 10:00 p.m. Careful readers of this column may recall that Saturn is in opposition on nearly the same date every year: July 9, 2019, July 21, 2020, August 1, 2021, August 14, 2022, and August 26, 2023. An outer planet is in opposition when Earth passes it up as both orbit the Sun. The farther out a planet is, the less it has moved along its orbit, and the closer it is to exactly one year from one Earth passing to the next. For comparison, it is about 18 months between successive oppositions for Mars.

Sunday: “You know Aries and Cancer and Draco and Libra. Leo and Pisces and Virgo and Hydra. But do you recall, the pointiest asterism of all? Triangulum, the three-sided asterism, had a very pointy shape. And if you didn’t know it, you would say it poked an ape.” Sorry. Some stores have started sending out their Christmas catalogs and that has put me in the mood to modify some Christmas songs. Anyway, Triangulum is a small constellation between the more prominent Andromeda and Aries. Its main feature is a skinny triangle oriented parallel to and four fists above the eastern horizon at 11:30 p.m.

Monday: Fomalhaut, the southernmost bright star visible from the northern USA, is one fist above the south-southeastern horizon at 11:00 p.m. In 2008, Fomalhaut and its surroundings became the first star system with an extrasolar planet to be directly imaged. See the family photo at https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap081114.html.

Tuesday: While many people think they need a telescope to enjoy looking at the night sky, some objects actually look better through binoculars. Open star clusters are one of those types of objects. M39, the 39th object in Charles Messier’s catalog, is straight overhead at 11:00 p.m. This open star cluster contains about 30 stars in a region that is about seven light years across and a thousand light years away. A quick trigonometry calculation shows that the cluster is about the same size as the full moon in the night sky. Read more about M39 at https://stardate.org/radio/program/2022-09-04.

Wednesday: At 1:00 a.m., Jupiter, the brightest point of light in the sky at this time, is one and a half fists above the east-northeastern horizon. Mars is a fist to the lower left of Jupiter.

Thursday: Earlier this week, you read about Fomalhaut, the second brightest star with a planet. The brightest star known to have a planet is Pollux, in the constellation Gemini. (First vs. second brightest is meaningless here because they are nearly identical in magnitude, 1.15 vs. 1.16.) Pollux is four and a half fists above due east at 5:30 a.m., right below its “twin” star Castor. Read more about Pollux at https://goo.gl/cL5t9p.

Friday: Arcturus is two fists above the western horizon at 9:00 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. All times are Pacific Time unless noted.

The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of August 17, 2024

Saturday: “The sky is black (or light polluted), the stars are white (or red or orange or yellow or blue), the whole world gazes upon the sight (except where there are too many city lights or people are lazy.” Wow. It is difficult to write a flowing set of lyrics when there are so many parenthetical thoughts. Most people think of the sky’s blackness as a lack of stars. But dark patches in the Milky Way are actually massive clouds of dust that are blocking the stars behind them. Two of the most prominent are dark nebulae B142 and B143 in the constellation Aquila the eagle. These are easy to find and enjoy with binoculars. First find the bright white star Altair, five fists held upright and at arm’s length above due south at 11:00 p.m. Then move your binoculars up and to the right a little bit to the next bright star Tarazed, about one fifth as bright. B142 and B143 are to the upper right of Tarazed. They make an “E” shape in the sky; fitting because American astronomer E. E. Barnard first proposed that these were dust clouds and not simply big spaces between the stars. For more information about dark nebulae, including many more to look at with binoculars, go to https://goo.gl/9tiqdh.

Sunday: Arcturus is two and a half fists above due west at 10:15 p.m. This star, whose name means bear watcher, is the brightest in the sky’s northern hemisphere. It follows Ursa Major, the Great Bear, around the North Star. Arcturus is the closest giant star to Earth. It is one of the few stars whose diameter can be measured directly rather than being inferred from its density and mass, which themselves are derived from other parameters.

Monday: The August full moon is traditionally called the full sturgeon moon by Midwest and northeastern Native American tribes because the lake sturgeon in this part of the country were easiest to catch during this full moon time. This month’s full moon is a supermoon, meaning it occurs close to perigee and appears large in the sky. Read all about Supermoon-mania at https://earthsky.org/human-world/what-is-a-supermoon.

Tuesday: Saturn is about a thumb width to the upper right of the moon at 10:00 p.m. They are one fist above the east-southeastern horizon.

Wednesday: All stars rotate. Our Sun takes a little less than one Earth month to rotate once on its axis. Astronomers studied the relationship between mass, stellar rotation, and planetary formation by aiming NASA’s recently retired Kepler space telescope toward the Pleiades open star cluster. All 1,000 stars in this group are nearly the same age, 125 million years old. Since all of the stars are the same age and formed from the same set of materials, astronomers have the ideal “laboratory” to isolate the role star mass plays on star rotation and evolution. Read more about the findings at https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/kepler-watches-stellar-dancers-in-the-pleiades-cluster. See the Pleiades for yourself, about a half a fist above the east-northeastern horizon at 11:30 p.m.

Thursday: Seventeenth century astronomers documented the appearance of a new star, or “nova”, in 1670. However, as modern astronomers studied the records of the star, called Nova Vulpeculae 1670, they realized it didn’t have the characteristics of a typical nova because it didn’t repeatedly brighten and dim. It brightened twice and disappeared for good. Turning their telescopes to the region, they discovered the chemical signature to be characteristic of a very rare collision of two stars. For more information about this discovery, go to http://goo.gl/rJnC2G. Nova Vulpeculae 1670 is right below the binary star system Alberio, the head of Cygnus the swan. Alberio is five fists above due south at 11:00 p.m.

Friday: The bright planet Jupiter is five fists above the east-southeastern horizon at 5:30 a.m. Mars is about a half a fist to the lower left 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. All times are Pacific Time unless noted.

The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of August 10, 2024

Saturday: The Perseid meteor shower peaks over the weekend with the peak of the peak coming Sunday night/Monday morning. In case you decide to stay in bed this week, the shower is active until about September 1 so you may still enjoy an increased number of meteors later. The moon is in the first quarter phase this weekend so it sets at about midnight. The meteors appear to come from a point just below the W of the constellation Cassiopeia. This point is about three fists held upright and at arm’s length above the northeast horizon at 11:00 p.m. By dawn, this point is nearly straight overhead. For tips about optimizing your viewing this year, go to https://earthsky.org/?p=165416  As your Mother might say, dress warm and sit in a comfortable chair for maximum enjoyment. These meteors are sand to pea-sized bits of rock that fell off of Comet Swift-Tuttle. They are traveling about 40 miles per second as they collide with the Earth and burn up in the atmosphere.

Sunday: One minor Harry Potter character actually has two well-known star names: Regulus Arcturus Black, the brother of Sirius Black who is Harry Potter’s godfather. Regulus Black was a former follower of Voldemort, the bad guy of the Harry Potter series. However, Regulus tried to dissociate himself from Voldemort and was killed. In the sixth book, Harry found an important note written by someone known only by the initials R.A.B. Hmmm. R.A.B. Regulus Arcturus Black perhaps? Regulus the star is right in line with the Sun at this time of year so it is not visible. Arcturus, the second brightest star visible in the nighttime sky in Washington and at Hogwarts, is about three fists above the western horizon at 10:00 p.m.

Monday: Bellatrix Lestrange is Sirius Black’s cousin. But, certainly not kissing cousins. They are killing cousins. Bellatrix kills Sirius in a fight at the Ministry of Magic. Bellatrix the star is the third brightest star in the constellation Orion the hunter. It is three fists above the east-southeastern horizon at 5:00 a.m. Jupiter and Mars are four fists above the east-southeastern horizon. Mars is a little bit above Jupiter. Over the next two days, Mars will move down past Jupiter.

Tuesday: Of course, Bellatrix is in cahoots with “he who must not be named”. Now, that’s a poorly written sentence, using an obscure synonym for “conspiring” and a vague reference to someone. I must be under the curse “writicus dreadfulium”. Clearly this is the work of Tom Riddle, whose mother is named Merope Gaunt. Merope is a star in the Pleiades, an open star cluster about five and a half fists above the east-southeastern horizon at 5:00 a.m. Saturn is three fists above the southwestern horizon.

Wednesday: Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter’s young nemesis, is related to Sirius Black. Draco’s mother, Narcissa Black (Sirius’ cousin), helped develop a plan to trap Harry at the Ministry of Magic in the fifth book. Draco’s namesake, the constellation Draco the dragon, is one of the largest constellations in the sky, winding around the North Star. Draco’s head is a four-sided figure a little on the northwest side of straight overhead at 10:00 p.m. In case you didn’t get up at 5:00 a.m. yesterday to look for Saturn, you can find it about a half a fist above the east-southeastern horizon at 10:00 p.m.

Thursday: Antares, the brightest star in the constellation Scorpius, is one and a half fists above the south-southwestern horizon at 9:30 p.m. Draco Malfoy was so impressed with this constellation name that he used it for the first name of his son.

Friday: Not every woman in the Black family is evil. Let’s focus on the good. Andromeda Black, Bellatrix’s sister, is a good witch and the mother of Tonks, a young witch from the last few Harry Potter books. (If these Harry Potter references are confusing, you better start reading the books.) Andromeda the constellation is an interesting one. It contains the Andromeda galaxy, the most distant object visible with the naked eye from a dark site. To locate the Andromeda Galaxy, first find the Great Square of Pegasus. At midnight, the left hand corner of the square is four fists above the eastern horizon. Less than two fists to the left and down a little bit is another star the same brightness as the star at the corner of the square. From that star, hop about a half a fist up to a star that is about one fourth as bright. Less than another half fist in the same direction is a fuzzy oval patch of light known as the Andromeda Galaxy. The galaxy is impressive to see in binoculars. It consists of about one trillion stars and is 2.5 million light years away.

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. All times are Pacific Time unless noted.

The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of August 3, 2024

Saturday: Star light. Star bright. The first star you see tonight might be Vega, nearly seven fists held upright and at arm’s length above the eastern horizon right after sunset.

Sunday: The moon is almost directly between the Earth and the Sun tomorrow. 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. In real life, 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 https://www.popsci.com/what-would-happen-if-moon-suddenly-disappeared/. For more information on Thomas Cruise Mapother IV, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Cruise.

Monday: The moon, Venus, and Regulus - from brightest to dimmest - are just above the west-northwestern horizon at 9:00 p.m.

Tuesday: Saturn is about one fist above the east-southeastern horizon at 11:00 p.m.

Wednesday: The Gemini twins, first Castor and then Pollux, rise just before the Sun. At 5:00 a.m., Pollux is one and a half fists above the northeastern horizon. Slightly dimmer Castor is a half a fist above it. Pollux is the brightest star, as observed from Earth, known to have a planet orbiting it. The planet, creatively called Pollux b, has about twice the mass of Jupiter.

Thursday: If you want to show your loved ones a celestial sign that they should hang up their clothes, show them Brocchi's Cluster, commonly known as the Coat Hanger cluster because of its resemblance to an upside down coat hanger. The cluster is about six fists above due south at 11:20 p.m., midway between Altair and Vega, the two brightest stars in the Summer Triangle. You'll need binoculars to make out the shape. First find Altair five fists above the southern horizon. Slowly move your binoculars up toward Vega. You will run into the coat hanger along the way. And while you are at it, put away your shoes.

Friday: Jupiter, Mars, and the bright star Aldebaran make a small triangle about four fists above the eastern horizon at 5:00 a.m. Jupiter is the brightest of the three. Mars is just to the upper 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. All times are Pacific Time unless noted.

The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of July 27, 2024

Saturday: Mercury and Venus are low on the west-northwestern horizon right after sunset. Venus is the brighter of the two. Mercury is a fist to the left of Venus at 9:10 p.m. The star Regulus is to the upper right of Mercury.

Sunday: Have you ever planned a vacation to a place because it was supposedly the up-and-coming locale? Then, when the vacation time finally arrives, you find out the place doesn’t live up to its billing. Seven years ago this month, astronomers strengthened earlier findings that the star Tau Ceti, one of our closest neighbors at 12 light years away, has four planets classified as “super-Earths”. Two of the planets are in the so-called habitable zone where the temperature is just right for having liquid water on their surface. Time for a va-ca-tion! Well, not so fast. Astronomers have only a lower limit to the planet masses so they may be too massive for complex life to form. And the Tau Ceti system has ten times as much mass in dust and rocks as our own solar system. So you’ll want to do some research before you travel there. Tau Ceti is one and a half fists above the southeast horizon at 3:00 a.m. For more information about the discovery, go to https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/four-exoplanets-may-orbit-nearby-sun-like-star/.

Monday: The Southern Delta Aquarid meteor shower peaks tonight and on into mid-August. Meteor showers are named after the constellation from which the meteors appear to originate. These meteors appear to come from a point in Aquarius near the star Delta Aquarii, also known as Skat. This point is about one and a half fists above the southeastern horizon at 1:00 am tonight. You can follow this point throughout the night, as it will remain a fist above Fomalhaut, the brightest star in that section of the sky, and a first to the lower right of Saturn. The Moon is approaching the new moon phase this week meaning it will not be up for many hours each night. For more information about this year’s shower, go to https://earthsky.org/?p=159138. As your mother might say, dress warm and sit in a comfortable chair for maximum enjoyment. Meteors are tiny rocks that hit the Earth and burn up in the atmosphere.

Tuesday: Clockwise from the top, the moon, Mars, the star Aldebaran, and Jupiter make a crooked diamond shape three and a half fists above due east at 5:00 a.m.

Wednesday: The bright star Altair is four fists above the southeastern horizon at 10:00 p.m.

Thursday: Mizar is a well-known binary star in the constellation Ursa Major. You can find it at the bend in the Big Dipper handle, three fists above due northwest at midnight. Its name is Arabic for waistband. Mizar has an optical double called Alcor, which is less than a pinky width away and can easily be seen with the naked eye. Optical doubles are stars that are close together in the sky but do not orbit a common center of mass as true binary stars. Not wanting to deceive sky gazers who call Alcor and Mizar a binary star, two stars that DO orbit a common center of mass, Mizar actually is a binary. It was the first binary star system discovered using a telescope. Mizar A and Mizar B are about 400 astronomical units apart from each other and about 80 light years from Earth. 400 astronomical units is about 10 times the distance between the Sun and Pluto.

Friday: The Perseid meteor shower peaks in a week and a half. But there will be an increased number of meteors over the next two weeks. If the Moon is out when you want to look, position yourself so you are in the Moon’s shadow. The meteors appear to come from a point just below the W of the constellation Cassiopeia. This point is about two and a half fists held upright and at arm’s length above the northeast horizon at 11:00 p.m. By dawn, this point is about seven fists above the northeast horizon. If you fall asleep or forget to set your alarm, you will be able to observe this shower from about 11 p.m. to dawn for the next two weeks in about the same location in the sky.

The Perseid shower is one of the longest lasting showers. For tips about optimizing your viewing this year, go to https://earthsky.org/?p=165416  These meteors are sand to pea-sized bits of rock that fell off of Comet Swift-Tuttle. They are traveling about 40 miles per second as they collide with the Earth and burn up in the atmosphere.

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. All times are Pacific Time unless noted.

The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of July 20, 2024

Saturday: Tonight’s full moon is in the constellation Sagittarius. The Wishram, Haida, and Tlingit people of the Pacific Northwest call the July full moon the salmon moon. This is the time of year the salmon return after spawning season.

Sunday: Mercury will be as far away from the Sun in the sky as it will get this orbital cycle. This "farthest away" point is known as the planet's greatest elongation. Since Mercury is in the evening sky, it is east of the Sun so this occurrence is called the greatest eastern elongation. This evening will be the best evening to observe Mercury for the next few weeks. Mercury is nearly a half a fist held upright and at arm’s length above the western horizon at 9:20 p.m. Over the next few weeks, Mercury will move toward the Sun in the sky. By late August, it will be visible in the morning sky.

Monday: Zubenelgenubi, the second brightest star in the constellation Libra. The name means "southern claw", a holdover from the time when this part of the sky was associated with the neighboring constellation of Scorpius the scorpion. Zubenelgenubi is a binary star system, easily seen with binoculars as a white and yellow pair. To a person living on a planet orbiting the dimmer of the two stars, the brighter star would be nearly as bright as the full Moon appears from Earth. Zubenelgenubi is one and a half fists above due southwest at 10:30 p.m.

Tuesday: Saturn is about a fist to the left at 11:30 p.m., about a fist above the east-southeastern horizon.

Wednesday: What you see with the naked eye isn’t all that can be seen. While astronomers can learn a lot from observing the sky in the visible wavelengths, many celestial objects radiate more light, and more information, in wavelengths such as radio, microwave, infrared, ultraviolet, x-ray, and gamma ray. In 2012, NASA launched the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) to study objects that radiate in the infrared range such as asteroids, cool dim stars, and luminous galaxies. For an interesting comparison of how different wavelengths show different aspects of celestial objects, go to http://goo.gl/nvuax. If it weren’t for infrared telescopes such as WISE, astronomers would not know about the significant amount of dust in galaxies. We also wouldn’t know how much brighter than the Sun red supergiant stars are. Antares is a red supergiant star, currently sitting at one and a half fists above the southern horizon at 9:30 p.m. In the visible wavelengths, Antares shines 10,000 times brighter than the Sun. But since Antares is much cooler than the Sun, its energy distribution peaks in the infrared. So across all wavelengths of light, Antares shines 60,000 times brighter than the Sun. The new James Webb Space telescope is also an infrared telescope.

Thursday: At 4:30 a.m., Jupiter, the brightest point light in the sky at this time, is about two and a half fists above the eastern horizon. Mars is a half a fist to the upper right of Jupiter.

Friday: Let’s learn about Capella. It is the fourth brightest star we can see in Ellensburg. It is the most northerly bright star. It is a binary star consisting of two yellow giant stars that orbit each other every 100 days. At 10:00 p.m., Capella is less than a half a fist above due north. You can also use the Big Dipper to find it.  First, find the two “cap” stars on the cup of the Big Dipper, the stars on the top of the cup. Draw a line from the “cap” star closest to the handle to the cap star farthest from the handle. Then, continue that line to the next very bright star, which is Capella. Thus, you can “cap” to Capella. If you can’t “cap” tonight, don’t worry. Capella is the brightest circumpolar star meaning it is the brightest star that never goes below the horizon from our point of view in Ellensburg.

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. All times are Pacific Time unless noted.

The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of July 13, 2024

Saturday: You can see some stars during the day with a small telescope or binoculars. The best candidate today is Spica because it is so close to the moon in the sky. First find the moon, due south at 7:00 p.m. Then aim your small telescope or binoculars at the moon. Spica is to the lower left of the moon. As time passes, the moon slowly moves eastward, to the left, with respect to the background stars. Follow these two objects until about 7:15 p.m. the moon will move between Spica and Earth, blocking it from view. This is called an occultation. By 8:35, Spica will reappear from the right, the lit, side of the moon.

Sunday: Mercury is a half a fist above the west-northwestern horizon at 9:30 p.m.

Monday: Nine years ago today, NASA’s New Horizons probe passed by Pluto. If the band Nirvana were still together, they’d probably rewrite one of their hit songs to be called Heart-Shaped Spot, after one of Pluto’s most distinctive features. “She eyes me like a dwarf planet when I am weak. I’ve been imaging your heart-shaped spot for weeks.” Astronomers think this heart-shaped spot is a large plain of nitrogen ice that consists of convective cells 10-30 miles across. Solid nitrogen is warmed in the interior of Pluto, becomes buoyant, and bubbles up to the surface like a lava lamp. You will find great pictures and information about what New Horizons found this past year at http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/. Pluto, itself, is exactly two fists above due south.

Hey, wait, I’ve got a new complaint. People should be more interested in astronomy. The best group to start with is children. If you are stuck at home, wondering what to do, go to the NASA Kids Club website at https://www.nasa.gov/kidsclub/. There are fun and educational activities for younger children. Older children may like my favorite NASA website about planets outside our Solar System. I suggest first exploring the “Galaxy of Horrors!” at https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/alien-worlds/galaxy-of-horrors/. 

Tuesday: Saturn is one fist above the east-southeastern horizon at midnight.

Wednesday: Say "Cheese". 174 years ago, Vega, in the constellation Lyra the lyre, became the first star ever photographed. The photograph was taken at the Harvard Observatory using the daguerreotype process. Vega is the third brightest nighttime star we can see in Ellensburg, behind Sirius and Arcturus. Vega is nearly straight overhead at 11:00 tonight.

Thursday: The Southern Delta Aquarid meteor shower has a long gradual peak for the next few weeks into mid-August. Meteor showers are named after the constellation from which the meteors appear to originate. These meteors appear to come from a point in Aquarius near the star Delta Aquarii, also known as Skat. This point is about two and a half fists above the southeast horizon at 3:00 am early this morning. You can follow this point throughout the night and for the next few weeks, as it will remain a fist above Fomalhaut, the brightest star in that section of the sky. Read about the shower, at https://earthsky.org/?p=159138. As your mother might say, dress warm and sit in a comfortable chair for maximum enjoyment. Meteors are tiny rocks that hit the Earth and burn up in the atmosphere.

Friday: Take a two and a half hour walk today. Too long, you say? 55 years ago today, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took the first ever walk by humans on another world. They spend two and a half hours setting up scientific instruments and collecting rocks for study back on Earth. Their colleague Michael Collins orbited the Moon in the spacecraft the astronauts would use to return to Earth. While everyone seems to know about Armstrong and Aldrin, spend some time learning more about Collins by reading https://time.com/5624528/michael-collins-apollo-11/.

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. All times are Pacific Time unless noted.