The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of May 16, 2026

 Saturday: In 1979, the group Foreigner recorded the song “Head Games”. They could have been singing about the constellations Hercules and Ophiuchus when they said “head games, it’s just you and me baby, head games, I can’t take it anymore” because the heads of these two constellations have been right next to each other in the nighttime sky for all of human history. And just to make it easy for you, a star that bears an Arabic name that means “the head” represents each head. In Hercules, it's Ras Algethi (head of the kneeler); in Ophiuchus, Ras Alhague (head of the serpent charmer). At 11:00 p.m., Ras Alhague, the brighter of the two, is about three fists held upright and at arm’s length above the east-southeastern horizon. Ras Algethi is about a half a fist to the upper right of Ras Alhague.

Sunday: Are you thirsty? I'll wait while you get some water. I will NOT wait while Corvus the crow gets you some water. The Greco-Roman god Apollo made this mistake. He sent Corvus the crow to get some water in the cup known as Crater. Some figs distracted Corvus and he waited for them to ripen so he could eat them. When Corvus got back late, Apollo put Corvus and Crater in the sky with the gently tipping cup just out of the reach of the perpetually thirsty crow. Corvus is a trapezoid-shaped constellation about two fists above due south at 9:30 p.m. Crater is just to the right of Corvus.

Monday: Venus is about a thumb’s width below the moon at 10:00 p.m., one fist above the west-northwestern horizon. When a bright planet is close to the moon in the sky, it is a tempting target to be seen when the Sun is out. “WHAT?!” you say. “Can I really see a planet when the Sun is out?” The brightest planets can be seen during the day with binoculars. The key is knowing where to look. Since you can easily find the moon during the days when it is out, use the moon to find Venus. First find the moon at 7:00 p.m., four fists above due west. Then get the moon in the center of your binocular field of view. Next move your binoculars a little to the lower left of the moon so find Venus. Finally, lower your binoculars and look in the same location.

Tuesday: Today is International Museum Day. You can read more about the day here: https://icom.museum/en/international-museum-day-2/. Even better, visit a museum instead. One of my favorite astronomy locations is the Goldendale Observatory in Goldendale, WA. Plan your visit at: https://www.goldendaleobservatory.com.

Wednesday: Are you thirsty when you get up in the morning? I know you are not waiting for Corvus. That’s okay because the Big Dipper is positioned to hold water in the morning sky. Look three fists above the northwest horizon at 4:30 a.m. You’ll see three stars that make a bent handle and four stars that make a cup. This is the Big Dipper.

Thursday: Jupiter is two fists above the western horizon at 10:00 p.m.

Friday: Regulus is about a finger’s width to the upper left of the moon, four fists above the west-southwestern horizon at 10:00 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 May 9, 2026

Saturday: Today is a great day to Get Intimate… Get Intimate with the Shrub-Steppe. This annual event organized by the Kittitas Environmental Education Network includes many outdoor educational activities, with most of them taking place in the Yakima River Canyon just south of Ellensburg. There are also planetarium shows at 2:00, 3:00, and 4:00 p.m. at the CWU Lydig Planetarium on the CWU campus. Go to https://www.ycic.org/giss-and-birdfest for more information about all the events. The planetarium shows are free. The planetarium is in Discovery Hall, found here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/Nwp1e5t7qXk5bfE9 .

Sunday: So, you think your mother has issues on Mother’s Day because she has you as a child? Her issues can’t be as bad as Cassiopeia’s issues. First, she was chained to a chair because she boasted about her beauty. Second, she must revolve around the North Star night after night. Third, a sea monster nearly killed her daughter Andromeda. Look for poor Cassiopeia about one and a half fists held upright and at arm’s length above the northern horizon at 10:00 p.m. Cassiopeia looks like a stretched out “W”.

Monday: Mars is just above the east-northeastern horizon at 5:00 p.m.

Tuesday: Have you ever seen a Black Hole? So far scientists have only directly imaged two. But they have seen the effects of dozens of Black Holes. Black holes have a strong gravitational influence on anything that passes close to them, including light. Cygnus X-1, the first Black Hole candidate ever discovered, is two fists above the east-northeastern horizon at 11:00 p.m., in the middle of the neck of Cygnus the swan. NASA launched the Chandra X-ray observatory in 1999 to study black hole candidates and other high-energy events.

Wednesday: If someone gives you a ring and says, “this ring symbolizes our eternal love, just like the rings of Saturn are eternal”, don’t doubt their love. But do doubt their astronomy knowledge. According to data recently analyzed from the Cassini Mission, Saturn’s rings may be only 10 to 100 million years old. As Cassini passed between Saturn and the rings, it was able to get the best estimate yet of the mass of the rings. Saturn’s rings are made mostly of ice and are still very bright and clean. Older rings would be darkened by debris. Also, the ring particles get pulverized by collisions over time. If this relatively low mass of ring particles were older, they would have been destroyed by now. For more information about the lifespan of Saturn’s rings, go to Saturn’s rings https://www.universetoday.com/141272/saturns-rings-are-only-10-to-100-million-years-old/. Saturn and its young rings are about a half a fist above the eastern horizon at 4:45 a.m., right below the moon.

Thursday: At 9:30 p.m., Jupiter is three fists above due west. Venus is one and a half fists above the west-northwestern horizon at this time.

Friday: I am guessing that some of you don’t like the line of reasoning from Tuesday: that seeing the effects of a Black Hole is good enough to claim there are Black Holes. You have never seen the wind. But you have seen the effects of the wind. And no Ellensburg resident doubts the existence of the wind.

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 May 2, 2026

Saturday: The Eta Aquarid meteor shower peaks just before dawn this Tuesday. Since this meteor shower has a fairly broad peak range, you should start looking before dawn every morning this week. The moon is in the waning gibbous phase near the peak so it will be above the horizon, obscuring the dimmer meteors. Meteor showers are named after the constellation from which the meteors appear to originate. The meteors appear to come from a point in the constellation Aquarius near the star Eta. This point is about one fist held upright and at arm’s length above the east-southeastern horizon at 4:00 a.m. The Eta Aquarid meteors slam into the Earth at about 40 miles per second, often leaving a long trail behind them. The Eta Aquarid meteors are small rocks that have broken off Halley’s Comet. For more information about the Eta Aquarids, go to http://earthsky.org/?p=158833.

Sunday: Antares is right above the moon, low on the southeastern horizon at 11:30 p.m.

Monday: Venus is one fist above the west-northwestern horizon at 9:30 p.m. Jupiter is nearly four fists above the western horizon at this time.

Tuesday: “Lately, I’ve been, I’ve been losing sleep. Dreaming about the things that we could be. But baby, I’ve been, I’ve been praying hard, said no more counting dollars. We’ll be counting 9,096 stars, yeah, we’ll be counting 9,096 stars.” Luckily, artistic judgment prevailed over scientific precision in the OneRepublic hit “Counting Stars”. According to the Yale Bright Star Catalog, there are 9,096 stars visible to the naked eye across the entire sky if you are observing from a very dark site. In the northern United States, where a part of the sky is never visible, that number drops to about 6,500. In the middle of a small city at mid-latitudes, like Ellensburg, that number drops to a few hundred. No wonder someone has been losing sleep. Learn more about the star count at http://goo.gl/nt8d80.

Wednesday: Give me an “M”. Give me a “3”. What does that spell? “M3.” “Big deal,” you say. It was a big deal to French comet hunter Charles Messier (pronounced Messy A). M3 was the 3^rd comet look-alike that Messier cataloged in the late 1700s. M3 is a globular cluster, a cluster of over 100,000 stars that is 32,000 light years away. It is too dim to be seen with the naked eye but is fairly easy to find with binoculars. First find Arcturus five and a half fists above due southeast at 10:30 p.m. Move your binoculars up one binocular field of view so two stars of nearly identical brightness are in your field of view. When the top star is in the lower left part of your field of view, there should be a fuzzy patch near the center of your field of view. This is M3.

Thursday: Saturn is half a fist above the eastern horizon at 5:00 a.m.

Friday: This weekend, celebrate Mother’s Day with the big mom of the sky, Virgo. Ancient Greeks and Romans associated this portion of the sky with their own goddess of the harvest, either Demeter (Greeks) or Ceres (Roman). Demeter was the mother of Persephone and Ceres was the mother of Proserpina. According to myth, each of these daughters was abducted causing their mothers great grief. The first star in Virgo rises in the afternoon. Spica, the bright bluish star in the constellation rises at 7:00 p.m. and is three fists above the south-southeastern horizon at 10:00 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 April 25, 2026

Saturday: The bright star Regulus is about a thumb width to the upper right of the moon at 9:00 p.m. They are five and a half fists held upright and at arm’s length above due south.

Sunday: One hundred six years ago tonight, astronomers Heber Curtis and Harlow Shapley were debating the distances of some of our farthest neighbors: galaxies. Curtis argued that the universe consisted of many galaxies millions of light years away. Shapley thought that the spiral structures seen in telescopes were actually close by as a part of the Milky Way. They also had different views on the size of the Milky Way. Learn more about their debate, called the Great Debate, at https://youtu.be/0MJCqJPMpeY. Learn more about the Milky Way by watching the center of it rise over the southeastern horizon at about 1:00 a.m.

Monday: The Eta Aquarid meteor shower peaks just before dawn on May 5 and 6. Since this meteor shower has a fairly broad peak range, you should start looking before dawn every morning this week. Meteor showers are named after the constellation from which the meteors appear to originate. The meteors appear to come from a point in the constellation Aquarius near the star Eta. This point is about one fist above the east horizon at 4:00 a.m. The Eta Aquarid meteors slam into the Earth at about 40 miles per second. They often leave a long trail. The Eta Aquarid meteors are small rocks that have broken off Halley’s Comet. For more information about the Eta Aquarids, go to http://earthsky.org/?p=158833.

Tuesday: Celebrate the ending of Global Astronomy Month by reading some poems and short stories submitted by astronomy fans at https://my.astronomerswithoutborders.org/programs/astroarts/astropoetry.

Wednesday: At 9:30 p.m., Jupiter is four fists above the western horizon and Venus is one fist above the west-northwestern horizon.

Thursday: Some open star clusters are easy to find and see, such as The Pleiades and The Hyades clusters in the constellation Taurus the bull. Some are difficult to see. M35, an open star cluster in the constellation Gemini the Twins, is in the middle. It doesn’t jump out at you, but it is easy to find if you have help. M35 is about one and a half fists above the west-northwestern horizon at 9:30 p.m., just to the right of two reddish stars of similar brightness. It is a family of a few thousand stars about 3,000 light years away. Open star clusters are young for stars, this one being about 100 million years old. The cluster is best seen using binoculars or a small telescope.

Friday: Orion stands low in the southwestern sky. At 9:00 p.m., the middle of Orion’s belt is about one fist above the west-southwest horizon. And talk about belt tightening! Alnilam, the middle star in the belt, is losing mass at a rate of about 100 thousand trillion tons a day. That’s a 1 followed by 17 zeros tons per day.

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 April 18, 2026

Saturday: Venus is one fist held upright and at arm’s length above the west-northwestern horizon at 9:00 p.m., just to the left of a two-day-old moon.

Sunday: The small house-shaped head of Hydra is four fists above the southwestern horizon at 10:00 p.m.

Monday: Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, is getting lower and lower as the days go by. It is one fist above the southwestern horizon at 9:00 p.m. By mid-May, it will be lost in the glare of the setting Sun.

Tuesday: The Lyrid meteor shower peaks tonight. The meteors appear to come from a point to the right of the bright bluish star Vega in the constellation Lyra the lyre. This point is about three fists above the east-northeast horizon at midnight tonight. The best time to observe this year is between midnight and dawn. Typically, this is one of the least interesting major meteor showers of the year, with 10-20 bright, fast meteors per hour. However, it is also one of the most unpredictable. As recently as in 1982, there were 90 meteors visible during a single hour. In addition, the Lyrid meteor shower has historical interest because it was one of the first ones observed. Chinese records say “stars fell like rain” in the shower of 687 B.C. As your mother might say, dress warmly and sit in a comfortable chair for maximum enjoyment. Meteors are tiny rocks that hit the Earth and burn up in the atmosphere. For more information, go to http://earthsky.org/?p=158735.

Wednesday: Jupiter is less than a half a fist below the moon at 9:00 p.m., about five fists above the west-southwestern horizon.

Thursday: Even though Zubenelgenubi is the second brightest star in Libra, its name means Southern Claw in Arabic, an artifact of the time that it was considered part of Scorpius the scorpion. Zubenelgenubi is a visual binary, consisting of a white and yellow star that are about 230 arc minutes apart from each other in the sky. This is about the same angular distance as the diameter of a medium sized dark spot on the Moon and can be easily resolved with binoculars. In actuality, the two stars are at least 5,500 astronomical units apart from each other, about 130 times the distance between the Sun and Pluto. Libra is one and a half fists above the southeastern horizon at midnight.

Friday: As the rock group Journey once thought of singing, “Wheel in the sky keeps on turnin’. I know where the Dipper’ll be tomorrow.” Every night, the Big Dipper and Cassiopeia make a wheel in the sky that turns around the North Star in a counterclockwise direction. Every year on April 24 at 10:00 p.m., the Big Dipper is straight overhead and W-shaped Cassiopeia is low on the northern horizon. Every year on April 25 at 10:00 p.m., the Big Dipper is straight overhead and W-shaped Cassiopeia is low on the northern horizon. Every year on April 26 at 10:00 p.m., the Big Dipper is straight overhead and W-shaped Cassiopeia is low on the northern horizon. Oh, am I boring you? Of course, there are subtle charges in the position from night to night. Each northern constellation moves about one degree counterclockwise from one night to the next. But this is not going to change their position in the sky drastically over a few days. So, if you know where the Big Dipper is tonight, you DO know where it’ll be tomorrow. If you are really struggling to understand this concept, Don’t Stop Believin’ in yourself. Just keep studying Faithfully.

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 April 11, 2026

Saturday: At 8:45 p.m., Venus is one fist held upright and at arm’s length above the western horizon.

Sunday: Do people think you have a magnetic personality? The star Cor Caroli understands how you feel. Cor Caroli has one of the strongest magnetic fields among main sequence stars like our Sun. This strong magnetic field is thought to produce large sunspots that cause the brightness of Cor Caroli to vary. Cor Caroli is nearly straight overhead at midnight.

Monday: Procyon, the fourteenth closest star to the Sun and the brightest star in the constellation Canis Minor, is four fists above the southwestern horizon at 9:30 p.m.

Tuesday: Did you get binoculars for the holidays? Like National Pet Day (April 11), World Hamster Day (April 12), or National Peach Cobbler Day (April 13). If so, start using them on some of the easy to find binocular targets found here: https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/best-targets-for-binoculars-moon-planets-nebula-clusters/. The first item on the list, the Moon, is a smart choice because it is full this week, meaning it is out most of the night. One of my favorite binocular objects is the Hyades Open Star Cluster. It is a V-shaped set of stars found about two fists above the western horizon at 9:00 p.m. The bright star Aldebaran is in the upper left-hand part of the V, just below Aldebaran is the double star system Theta1 and Theta2 Tauri. Theta2 Tauri is a blue giant star and Theta1 Tauri is an orange giant star. Through binoculars, you should get a hint of their color. In the mythology of the Maya, the Theta Tauri pair is known as Chamukuy, meaning “small bird” in the Yucatec Maya language.

Wednesday: “The crow rises in the southeast,” said spy number one. “I’m sorry. I don’t recognize that code,” replied spy number two. Spy one exclaimed, “That’s because it’s not a code, you idiot. I’m talking about the constellation Corvus the crow.” This very bad spy movie dialogue is to remind you that Corvus had a very bad life. According to one myth, Corvus brought the god Apollo the news that his girlfriend was seeing someone else. In a classic case of punishing the messenger, Apollo turned the formerly beautifully colored crow black. The box-shaped Corvus is two fists above the south-southeastern horizon at 10:00 p.m.

Thursday: Remember the old saying: April showers bring… meteors. The Lyrid meteor shower peaks next week, with the peak of the peak occurring from Tuesday night to Wednesday morning. The meteors appear to come from a point to the right of the bright bluish star Vega in the constellation Lyra the lyre. This point is about three fists above the east-northeast horizon at midnight tonight and close to straight overhead near dawn. The best time to observe meteor showers is between midnight and dawn. The moon will have set so the sky will be dark. Typically, this is one of the least interesting major meteor showers of the year, with 10-20 bright, fast meteors per hour. However, it is also one of the most unpredictable. As recently as 1982, there were 90 meteors visible during a single hour. In addition, the Lyrid meteor shower has historical interest because it was one of the first ones observed. Chinese records say “stars fell like rain” in the shower of 687 B.C. 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. For more information, go to http://earthsky.org/?p=158735.

Friday: Jupiter is five fists above the west-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. All times are Pacific Time unless noted.

The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of April 4, 2026

Saturday: Because the Earth slowly wobbles like a spinning top, the vernal equinox is slowly moving into the constellation Aquarius. By the year 2597, the vernal equinox will reach the constellation Aquarius, and the “Age of Aquarius” will begin. Until then, we’ll be in “the age of Pisces”. Pisces rises with the Sun around the first day of spring.

Sunday: Astronomers are often fascinated with large objects. Planets that could hold 1000 Earths (Jupiter). Stars that would fill up the entire inner Solar System (Betelgeuse). Galaxies with 400 billion stars (Milky Way). But what about the smallest objects? Until recently, the smallest known stars were about five times the mass of Jupiter. However, in 2023, a pair of astronomers looking at the Orion Nebula think they discovered pairs of binary brown dwarf stars just a little more massive than Jupiter. If confirmed, that could necessitate a substantial change in the accepted theory of star formation. For more on the smallest star, go to https://www.science.org/content/article/astronomers-may-have-spotted-smallest-possible-stars. You can’t see these stars. But you can see the Orion Nebula two fists above the southwestern horizon at 9:00 p.m.

Monday: Antares is a half a fist to the left of the moon at 5:30 a.m., low in the southern sky.

Tuesday: The stars in the Hyades Cluster are all young, as stars are judged, formed in the same cloud of gas, and dust a few hundred million years ago. But just as children move away from home, the stars of the Hyades Cluster are slowly drifting apart. Millennia from now, future sky watchers will see these stars as random points of light in the sky and not as a family. I hope they at least call home every so often. For more information, go to https://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/end-hyades-star-cluster/. The Hyades Cluster is two fists above due west at 9:30 p.m.

Wednesday: You probably didn’t know this, but several British New Wave bands were really into astronomy. Take the band “Dead or Alive” (please). The original lyrics to their song “You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" were actually: “You spin me right round, baby, right round, like the Whirlpool Galaxy, right round, round, round.” (Well, that’s what I thought they were.) The Whirlpool Galaxy was the first galaxy observed to have a spiral shape. Since then, astronomers have discovered that many galaxies, including our own Milky Way Galaxy, have a spiral shape. Go to https://esahubble.org/images/heic0506a/ for more information about the Whirlpool Galaxy. Go to your small telescope to find the Whirlpool Galaxy in the night sky. It is in the constellation Canes Venatici, the hunting dogs. At 10:00 p.m., find Alkaid, the end star of the Big Dipper handle, five and a half fists above the east-northeastern horizon. The Whirlpool Galaxy is two fingers to the upper right of Alkaid.

Thursday: Venus is a half a fist above the west-northwestern horizon and Jupiter is five and a half fists above the southwestern horizon at 9:00 p.m.

Friday: The Lyrid meteor shower peaks later this month. But there will be increased meteor activity in the vicinity of the constellation Lyra until then. The meteors appear to come from a point to the right of the bright bluish star Vega in the constellation Lyra the lyre. This point is about one and a half fists above due northeast at 10:00 p.m. and close to straight overhead near dawn. Go to https://earthsky.org/?p=158735 for more information.

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.