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.