The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of September 7, 2019

Saturday:  Saturn remains about half a fist held at arm’s length to the upper left of the Moon throughout the night. Look for them in the southern sky at sunset. They will be moving closer together in the sky as they both set as viewed from the United States. People in parts of Australia, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea will actually see the Moon occult or block Saturn. You might think, “big deal, the Moon blocks a planet.” But carefully timed occultations such as this give astronomers a means to precisely study lunar topography.

Sunday: “Excuse me, do you have the time?”

“No, but the Big Dipper does.”

You can use the orientation of the Big Dipper to tell time with a precision of about 15-30 minutes. First, find the two stars at the far end of the Big Dipper cup, the stars that do not touch the handle. Draw an imaginary line segment starting at the North Star and passing through the two Big Dipper cup stars. Now, draw a big circle around the North Star. Your circle is a 24-hour clock. Number the circle from 0 hours at the top, counterclockwise to 12 hours at the bottom of the circle, and back up to 24 hours at the top. (O hours and 24 hours are the same on this clock because the day is 24 hours long.) The hour number on the big circle closest to where your imaginary line intersects this circle is called your raw time. Due to the location of the Big Dipper compared to the rest of the stars, the time nearest the intersection (the raw time) is correct for March 6. For any other night, subtract two times the number of months the current date is after March 6 from the raw time. For example, let’s say the imaginary line between the North Star and the Dipper stars is pointed to the right. That means the raw time is 18 hours or 6 p.m. If you made this observation on October 6, which is seven months after March 6, you would subtract two times seven or 14 hours from the raw time.  Thus, the time for November 6 is 18 hours minus 14 hours or 4 hours. In other words, 4 a.m. Don’t forget to convert for daylight savings time if needed. For a more complete explanation on how to do the Big Dipper clock math, go to http://goo.gl/02HmA. If you prefer a more visual tool, and a fun project to do with your kids, there is a simple “star clock” template and instructions at http://goo.gl/SFKrE. Use this paper star clock whenever you watch is broken.

Monday: The planet Neptune is on the opposite side of the Earth as the Sun is, meaning it is at its brightest and easiest to see. Of course, “bright and easy” is relative because you’ll still need binoculars to see it. Go out at 11:00 p.m. and  find Fomalhaut, the bright star a little less than one fist above the south-southeastern horizon. Then move your binoculars up about three binocular fields of view to the fairly bright star called Skat. Next continue to move up about one and a half binocular fields of view to the reddish star called Hydor, which is a little dimmer than Skat. Finally, move your binoculars one binocular field of view to the left to a Phi Aquarii, star that is a little dimmer than Hydor. Neptune is the dimmer point of light to the right of Phi Aquarii. Go back to this spot for the next few nights to watch Neptune move away from Phi Aquarii.

Tuesday: Had the script been written a little differently for a well-known Robin Williams movie, we might have heard Mr. Williams shout, “Goooood Morning Orion the hunter”. Orion is typically thought of as a winter constellation. But, it makes its first appearance in the early morning summer sky. The lowest corner of Orion’s body, represented by the star Saiph (pronounced “safe”), rises at 2 a.m., well before the Sun. By 6 a.m., Orion’s belt is nearly four fists above the south-southeastern horizon. 

Wednesday: 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.

Thursday: Next July, NASA will launch the Mars 2020 rover. Boring name, right? Well, NASA just launched a contest for K-12 students to name the rover. Go to https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/participate/name-the-rover/ for more information.The first helicopter in space will be hitching a ride on the rover. This helicopter, with blades that rotate at about 3,000 revolutions per minute, is a possible prototype for future missions to Mars and other Solar System bodies. Go to  https://youtu.be/oOMQOqKRWjU to see a test flight. Mars is too close to the Sun in the sky to be visible. By the end of September, it will pop out from the Sun’s glare.

Friday: Tonight's Full Moon is an un-supermoon because it is near apogee, its farthest distance from the Earth.

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. 

The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of August 31, 2019

Today: The Ellensburg Rodeo is a “Top-25” rodeo. What does it take to be a “Top-25” star? There are many ways to rank stars. The most obvious way for a casual observer to rank stars is by apparent brightness. The apparent brightness is the brightness of a star as seen from Earth, regardless of its distance from the Earth. Shaula (pronounced Show’-la) is the 25th brightest star in the nighttime sky as seen from Earth. It represents the stinger of Scorpius the scorpion. In fact, Shaula means stinger in Arabic. Shaula has a visual brightness rating of 1.62. Sirius, the brightest star has a visual brightness rating of -1.46. (Smaller numbers mean brighter objects.) The dimmest objects that can be seen with the naked eye have a visual brightness rating of about 6. There are approximately 6,000 stars with a lower numbered visual brightness rating than 6 meaning there are 6,000 stars visible to the naked eye. Shaula is a blue sub-giant star that radiates 35,000 times more energy than the Sun. It is 700 light years away making it one of the most distant bright stars. Shaula is a challenge to find because it never gets more than a half a fist above the horizon. Look for it tonight about a half a fist held upright and at arm’s length above the southern horizon, a little bit west of due south, at 8:30 p.m.

Sunday: School starts this week so it is time for a little geometry review. A square is a regular quadrilateral. This means it has four equal sides, four equal angles, and wears old fashioned clothing. Go outside at 10:00 p.m. tonight with notebook in hand to sketch one. The Great Square of Pegasus is balancing on its corner two and a half fists above due east. The top corner of the square is two fists above the bottom corner. The other two corners are to the left and right of the line segment connecting the top and bottom corners. 

Monday: Labor Day was the brainchild of labor unions and is dedicated to American workers. The first Labor Day was celebrated in 1882. The Greek mythical hero Hercules probably wished there was a Labor Day to commemorate his work. As punishment for killing his family while he was temporarily insane, he had to perform twelve nearly impossible tasks such as killing monsters or stealing things from deities. Hmmm. Maybe we shouldn’t commemorate his labors. But we can enjoy his constellation. The keystone asterism representing the body of Hercules is six fists above the west horizon at 10 p.m. For more information about the Labors of Hercules, go to http://goo.gl/ozVF5. 

Tuesday: Geometry review, part 2. Go outside at 10 p.m. tonight with notebook in hand. (Good teaching involves a little repetition.) A triangle is a polygon with three corners and three line segments as sides. A good example is the Summer Triangle made up of the bright stars Vega, Deneb and Altair. Vega, the brightest star in the triangle, is a little bit southwest of straight overhead. Deneb is a little bit east of straight overhead and Altair is five fists above the southern horizon.  

Wednesday: Saturn is two fists above due south at 9:00 p.m.

Thursday: Jupiter is two finger-widths to the lower left of the Moon at 8:00 p.m.

Friday: “I’m a little teapot, short and stout. The galactic center, I pour it out.” (I’m a Little Teapot, astronomy version, 2019.) 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 one fist above the south-southwestern 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. 

The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of August 24, 2019

Saturday: Arcturus is three fists held upright and at arm’s length above the western horizon at 9:30 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.

Sunday: Have you ever gone to a family reunion, looked around and asked, “How in the world are we related to each other?” Astronomers look around the Solar System and wonder if there is life anywhere else that we are related to. The Mars Science Laboratory landed on Mars in 2012 to investigate whether it ever had conditions favorable for life. The Venus Express studied the atmosphere of Venus from 2006 to 2014. NASA plans to launch the Europa Clipper in 2023 to look for evidence of current or past life in the Jovian moon’s ice-covered ocean. And NASA just approved the Dragonfly mission to fly a drone through the atmosphere of Saturn’s moon Titan to study clues for the origin of life. To learn more about the search for life in the Solar System and beyond, go to https://www.astrobio.net/, a NASA-sponsored popular science magazine. While you won’t see anyone waving back, you can see Jupiter and Saturn in the evening sky. At 9:00 p.m., Jupiter is nearly two fists above the south-southwestern horizon and Saturn is two fists above the southern horizon.

Monday: Deneb is nearly straight overhead at 11 p.m. When you look at Deneb, you are seeing light that left Deneb about 1,800 years ago.

Tuesday: Spica, the brightest star in the night sky, is about a half a fist above the southeastern horizon at 5:30 a.m.

Wednesday: All stars rotate. Our Sun takes a little less than an Earth month to make one rotation. Astronomers have started to study the relationship between mass, stellar rotation, and planetary formation by aiming NASA’s Kepler space telescope toward the Pleiades open star cluster. All 1,000 stars in this group is 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 http://goo.gl/osijIY. See the Pleiades for yourself, one 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 seven fists above due south at 10:00 p.m.

Friday: Today’s new Moon is at perigee, meaning it is at its closest point to the Earth for the month. When the Moon is closer to the Earth, its gravitational tug is greater and the tides are higher. So that means the tides will be exceptionally high today.

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. 

The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of August 17, 2019

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 the southeastern horizon at 10 p.m. Then move your binoculars up 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 it was American astronomer E. E. Barnard who first proposed that these were dust clouds and not simply big spaces between the stars. For more information about dark nebula, including many more to look at with binoculars, go to https://goo.gl/9tiqdh. 

Sunday: Jupiter is one and a half fists above the south-southwestern horizon and Saturn is two fists above the southern horizon at 10:00 p.m.

Monday: Fomalhaut, the southernmost bright star, is a half a fist above the southeastern horizon at 11:30 p.m.

Tuesday: Need a caffeine pick-me-up? Make it a double. Need an astronomy pick-me-up? Make it a double double. Find Vega, in the constellation Lyra the lyre, nearly straight overhead at 10:00 tonight. Less than half a fist to the east (or left if you are facing south) of the bright bluish star 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.

Wednesday: 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 six fists above the southern horizon at 11 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 south 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.

Thursday: Let’s all sing the galactic black hole monster song: “D is for dusty, that’s good enough for me. D is for dusty that’s good enough for me. D is for dusty that’s good enough for me. Oh dusty, dusty, dusty starts with D.” Astronomers know that spiral galaxies such as our own have super massive black holes in the center, black holes that are billions of times the mass of the Sun. They thought they got to be this massive by mergers where two galaxies collide and the gas, dust and black holes at the center of each colliding galaxy form a larger central black hole. But many distant galaxies show no signs of galactic mergers. Astronomers think the black holes at the center of these galaxies grew simply by snacking on the gas and dust that comes from supernova explosions and normal star formation. Just like the Cookie Monster gains weight by snacking on individual cookies rather than eating a cookie factory. Cookie crumbs, I mean dust, block your view of the center of our galaxy.  It is about one fist above the southern horizon at 10 p.m., between the constellations Sagittarius and Scorpius. For more information, go to http://goo.gl/L9ppJf.

Friday: The Moon is in the Hyades Cluster late tonight at 2:00 a.m. The bright star Aldebaran is about a thumb width to the lower right of the Moon. 

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. 

The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of August 10, 2019

Since the Perseid Meteor Shower peak this weekend will be difficult to see because of the full or nearly full Moon, let’s focus on a universe that never disappoints: Harry Potter. For those of you who still want to view the Perseids, here are some tips for dealing with the moonlit skies.

Saturday: 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? 

Sunday: Regulus is lost in the glare of the setting Sun at this time of year. Arcturus, the second brightest star visible in the nighttime sky in Washington and at Hogwarts., is three and a half fists above the western horizon at 10 p.m. The bright star Spica is below Arcturus, just barely above the west-southwestern horizon.

Monday: Bellatrix Lestrange is Sirius Black’s cousin. But, far from being 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 two fists above the east-southeastern horizon at 5:00 a.m.

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. 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 fists above the east horizon at 5:00 a.m.

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 nearly straight overhead at 9:30 p.m.

Thursday: Antares, the brightest star in the constellation Scorpius, is one and a half fists above the south-southwestern horizon at 9:00 p.m., right below the much brighter Jupiter. 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 11:00 p.m., the left hand corner of the square is about three and a half 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. 

The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of August 3, 2019

Saturday:  The Perseid meteor shower is next weekend. But the Moon will be full then so it may be better to do your Perseid viewing this week. 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 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 few nights in about the same location in the sky. The Perseid shower is one of the longest lasting showers. The Moon will be new or close to new for the next few nights. For tips about optimizing your viewing this year, go to http://earthsky.org/?p=2087. 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: Saturn is two fists above the south horizon at 11 p.m.

Monday: Spica is less than a fist to the lower left of the Moon at 9 p.m.

Tuesday: Many big city dwellers never see the milky white, nearly continuous band of stars known as the Milky Way. As cities grow and add more lights, it has become harder to see the bulk of the Milky Way galaxy, our home in the universe. But, there are two easy ways to see the Milky Way. The first way is to look in the mirror. You are part of the Milky Way. The second way is to look from the north-northeastern horizon through the point nearly straight overhead (called the zenith) to the south-southwestern horizon from 10:00 p.m. to midnight for the next few weeks. This is the time of year when the Milky Way is highest in the sky and away from the city lights on the horizon.

Wednesday: Mercury is near its greatest western elongation for the next few mornings, meaning it is a far as it will get from the Sun in the morning sky this orbit.

Thursday: When the Moon is full, as it will be next week, it is difficult to see dim objects in the sky because of the sky glow. But why struggle to find dim objects when there is so much to see on the big, bright object in front of you? The lunar crater called Tycho is best seen during a full Moon. Tycho was formed about 109 million years ago when an asteroid struck the Moon, leaving a crater over 50 miles in diameter and ejected dust trails that radiate out hundreds of miles in all directions. For more lunar highlights, go to http://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/docs/ObserveMoon.pdf, a resource of the Night Sky Network.

Friday: The Moon, Jupiter, and Antares make a line in the sky today. Jupiter is less than half a fist to the lower right of the Moon and Antares is about a half a fist beyond Jupiter. By the way, I did say “today”. This would be a good day to try see Jupiter while the Sun is out. First find the Moon two fists above the south-southeastern horizon at 8 p.m. Jupiter is about two finger widths to the right-lower right of the Moon. It would help to find it with binoculars first.

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. 

The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of July 27, 2019

Saturday:  The Southern Delta Aquarid meteor shower peaks this week 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 held upright and at arm’s length above the southeastern horizon at 1 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. Since the New Moon is this week, the skys will be exceptionally dark during prime meteor watching time. 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.

Sunday: Aldebaran and the Hyades Cluster are one fist to the upper right of the Moon at 5 a.m.

Monday: Mizar is a well-known binary star in the constellation Ursa Major. You can find it at the bend in the Big Dipper handle, five fists above the west-northwestern horizon at 10 p.m. 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 by 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.

Tuesday: Jupiter is two fists above the southern horizon and Saturn is a little less than two fists above the south-southwestern horizon at 10 p.m.

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. For example, 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 south-southwestern horizon and one fist to the lower right of the much brighter (and much closer) Jupiter. In the visible wavelengths, Antares shines 10,000 times brighter than the Sun. But since Antares is much cooler that the Sun, its energy distribution peaks in the infrared. So across all wavelengths of light, Antares shines 60,000 times brighter than the Sun.

Thursday: The planet Mercury is less than a half a fist above the east-northeastern horizon at 5 a.m., just ahead of the rising Sun. It is about a fist to the lower right of the Gemini twin stars, Pollux and Castor.

Friday: It is not winter yet. But Orion, thought of as a winter constellation, is just above the east-southeastern horizon at 5 a.m. By the actual winter, it will be visible in the evening sky. 

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.