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.