The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of October 10, 2026

Saturday: “I’m a little teapot, short and stout. The galactic center, I pour it out.” (I’m a Little Teapot, astronomy version, 2026.) Despite its great size and importance, the center of our Milky Way galaxy and its giant black hole remain 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 held upright and at arm’s length above the south-southwestern horizon at 8:00 p.m.

Sunday: Mars is feeling very crowded in the sky tonight because it is lined up with the center of the Beehive Cluster. Of course, in real life they are far apart. Mars is a neighboring planet in our solar system and The Beehive Cluster is an open star cluster of over 300 stars about 580 light years away. See the grouping for yourself this morning. They are five and a half fists above the southeastern horizon at 6:30 a.m. The bright planet Jupiter is to the lower left of Mars and The Beehive, four fists above the east-southeastern horizon.

Monday: Vesta, the brightest asteroid, is at opposition tonight. That doesn’t mean the asteroid is spending the night saying, “no”. It does mean tonight is one of the best nights of the year to observe Vesta. First, check out the website for NASA’s Dawn spacecraft which visited Vesta 2011-2012: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/dawn/. Then try to find Vesta in the sky with binoculars. Vesta is three fists above due southeast and a little more than one fist to the lower left of the bright planet Saturn at 10:30 p.m. Find Saturn with your binoculars. Then move them about 1.5 to two binocular fields of view to the lower left. Return to this spot over the next few nights. Vesta will appear to move slightly eastward each night compared to the background stars.

Tuesday: The bright star Antares is one fist to the upper left of the moon, just above due southwest at 7:00 p.m.

Wednesday: It is time to 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 morning of October 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 one fist above the eastern horizon at midnight. 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.

Thursday: 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 snacks into your parent’s shopping cart, hoping they would not notice.

Friday: 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 nearly straight overhead at 11:00 p.m., just above the zigzag line that marks the constellation Cassiopeia.

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 3, 2026

Saturday: This week is World Space Week. Go to https://www.worldspaceweek.org for more information and a listing of key events. I want to highlight https://sheorbitscompany.com, an organization that is pioneering women’s leadership in space exploration. They are sponsoring virtual events for females interested in space.

Sunday: 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 about 12 days later each year: August 1, 2021, August 14, 2022, August 26, 2023, September 7, 2024, and September 20, 2025. 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. Saturn is three fists above due southeast at 10:30 p.m.

Monday: The moon, Mars, and the open star cluster called The Beehive Cluster are in a line about four and a half fists above the east-southeastern horizon at 6:00 a.m. the Beehive Cluster is just to the upper right of the moon and Mars is about a half fist to the upper right of the moon.

Tuesday: The Draconid meteor shower peaks for the next four nights with Thursday 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. Luckily, the moon is in the waning crescent phase, close to new, meaning it won’t interfere much with viewing. 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

Wednesday: Jupiter is three and a half fists above the east-southeastern horizon at 6:00 a.m.

Thursday: The bright star Arcturus is one and a half fists above the west-northwestern horizon at 8:00 p.m.

Friday: The Milky Way makes a faint white trail from due northeast, by the moon, 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.

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 26, 2026

Saturday: The September full moon goes by many names. The Western Abenaki call it the Corn Maker Moon because of the impending harvest. The Tlingit call it the Child Moon because this is the time of year young animals are weaned. The Ojibwe call it the Falling Leaves Moon because the trees are starting to lose their leaves. For more about full moon names, go to https://www.almanac.com/full-moon-names. We can call tonight’s full moon the “Above Saturn Moon” because Saturn is a half a fist below the moon at 9:00 p.m., low in the eastern sky.

Sunday: You learned about Cassiopeia last week. Over 200 years ago, the astronomer Caroline Herschel discovered an open star cluster that looks like a rose. 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 9:00 p.m., find the star at the top of the sideways “W” known as Cassiopeia. It is five and a half fists held upright and at arm’s length above due northeast. When that star is in the lower left portion of your binocular 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.

Monday: At 6:00 a.m., Jupiter is about three fists above the eastern horizon. At this time, Mars is about two fists to the upper right of Jupiter, five fists above the east-southeastern horizon.

Tuesday: 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, six fists above due west at 9:30 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.

Wednesday: The open star cluster called the Pleiades is a half a fist to the moon at 6:00 a.m., five and a half fists above the southwestern horizon.

Thursday: 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 essential information about the scale of the universe. Aldebaran, about one fist above the eastern horizon at 11:00 p.m., is a foreground star and not a part of the Hyades cluster.

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 19, 2026

Saturday: Tonight is International Observe the Moon Night (IOMN). Although you don’t have to wait until night to observe it. The moon rises above the southeastern horizon at 4:00 p.m. By 9:00 p.m., it is one and a half fists held upright and at arm’s length above due south. You’ll see that it is in the constellation Sagittarius. Being “in” a constellation means the object is lined up with the constellation in the sky. The moon sets a little before midnight, marking the end of IOMN. For more information about observing the moon, go to https://science.nasa.gov/moon/observe-the-moon-night/. Or better yet, just go outside between 4:00 p.m. and midnight and observe the moon.

Sunday: To the people of Ancient Greece, the stars that are about five and a half fists above the northeastern and eastern horizons, respectively, at 10:30 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.

Monday: Saturn is about three fists above the southeastern horizon at 11:00 p.m.

Tuesday: At 5:00 p.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 appears to take 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 6:49 a.m. and sets at 6:58 p.m. in the northern latitudes of the United States.

Wednesday: Venus is at its brightest of the year this week. It is lost in the glare of the Sun, just above the southwestern horizon. You may be able to spot it with binoculars. At 7:00 p.m., pan your binoculars along the horizon from the position of the recently set Sun to the left towards southwest.

Thursday: Jupiter is three fists above the eastern horizon at 6:00 a.m. Mars is about two fists to the upper right of Jupiter, nearly five fists above the eastern horizon.

Friday: Ask someone which day in September has the same duration day and night. Go ahead, ask someone. Why are you still reading this? I’ll 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 on 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.

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 12, 2026

Saturday: 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.

Sunday: The moon, Venus, and the star Spica form a small triangle just above the west-southwestern horizon at 7:45 p.m. Venus appears about 100 times brighter than Spica. Both are above the moon.

Today is an even better day to see a planet during the day. Wait until the sun is low in the western sky so its light is less intense - try 7:00 p.m. Next, find the moon with your naked eye. Then aim your binoculars at the moon. Look for Venus to the upper left of the moon, about one binocular field of view away. Finally, lower the binoculars and look at that same spot with your naked eye. Venus should be visible.

Monday: “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.

Tuesday: Saturn is two fists above the east-southeastern horizon at 10:00 p.m.

Wednesday: Fomalhaut, the farthest south of all the bright stars visible in the northern United States, is one fist above the south-southeastern horizon at 11:00 p.m.

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 about one fist above the northern horizon at midnight.

Friday: At 6:00 a.m., Jupiter is two and a half fists above the eastern horizon. Mars is four and a half fists above the eastern horizon, two fists 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 September 5, 2026

Saturday: “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 could 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 the ground and two and a half fists held upright and at arm’s length above the east-northeastern horizon at 10:00 p.m.

Sunday: Mars is a half a fist below the moon and four fists above the eastern horizon at 5:30 a.m.

Monday: Later this week, you will read about Fomalhaut, the second brightest star with a planet. First, let’s learn about the brightest star known to have a planet. It is Pollux, in the constellation Gemini. Pollux is about a half a fist above the moon and about 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://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/meet-pollux-red-giant-exoplanet/.

Tuesday: Jupiter is about a half a fist below the moon and one and a half fists above the eastern horizon at 5:30 a.m.

Wednesday: 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.

Thursday: The moon is almost directly between the Earth and the Sun today. 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.

Friday: Saturn is two fists above the east-southeastern horizon at 10:30 p.m.

The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week. For up-to-date information about the night sky, go to https://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/planner.cfm. All times are Pacific Time unless noted.

The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of August 29, 2026

Saturday: “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 tonight, which is six months after March 6, you would subtract two times six or 12 hours from the raw time. Don’t forget to convert for daylight savings time if needed. 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 https://skyandtelescope.org/observing/make-a-star-clock/. Use this paper star clock whenever your watch is broken. The Big Dipper is in the northwestern sky at 9:00 p.m. tonight.

Sunday: Venus is less than half a fist above the west-southwestern horizon at 8:30 p.m. The bright star Regulus is just to the upper left of Venus.

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 western horizon at 10:00 p.m. For more information about the Labors of Hercules, go to http://goo.gl/ozVF5.

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 2:45 a.m. By 5:30 a.m., Orion’s belt is three fists above the southeastern horizon.

Wednesday: 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 9:30 p.m. tonight with a notebook in hand to sketch one. The Great Square of Pegasus is balancing on its corner about two fists above the eastern horizon. 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.

Thursday: Since some of you must get up for school, you might as well check out the sky, as well. At 5:30 a.m., bright Jupiter is one and a half fists above the horizon, a little bit north of due east. Mars is four fists above the horizon, a little bit south of due east. Saturn is way on the other side of the sky, three and a half fists above due southwest.

Friday: Geometry review, part 2. Go outside at 9:30 p.m. tonight with a 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. Altair is five fists above the southern horizon. Vega, the brightest star in the triangle, is seven and a half fists above the southwestern horizon. Deneb is a little bit east of straight overhead.

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.