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.

The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of March 21, 2026

Saturday: Signs of spring: flower buds, leaves on the trees, beetle larvae, and the Spring Triangle. The bright stars Regulus, Arcturus, and Spica rise as evening starts. By 10:00 p.m., Regulus is five fists held upright and at arm’s length above the south-southeast horizon, Arcturus is two fists above the eastern horizon, and Spica is half a fist above the east-southeast horizon. For more on the Spring Triangle, go to https://www.livescience.com/space/vernal-equinox-how-to-see-spring-begin-just-by-looking-at-the-stars.

Sunday: The open star cluster called The Pleiades is less than a half a fist to the upper left of the moon at 9:00 p.m. They are about three fists above the western horizon at this time.

Monday: Venus is a little less than a fist above due west at 8:00 p.m.

Tuesday: The brightest star in the head of Draco the dragon is called Eltanin, based on the Arabic At-Tinnin or “great serpent”. It is currently about 150 light years away. Eltanin is moving towards our Solar System. In 1.5 million years, it will be only 28 light years away and the brightest star in the night sky, nearly as bright as Sirius is currently. Eltanin is three fists above due northeast at midnight.

Wednesday: Jupiter is about a half a fist to the left of the moon throughout the night. They are six fists above the southwestern horizon at 9:00 p.m.

Thursday: The Milky Way is pretty easy to spot in the early spring sky. Just look up. Everything you see in the sky, including that bird that just startled you, is in the Milky Way. But even the path of densely packed stars in the plane of our galaxy that looks like a river of milk is easy to find. Face due west at 9:00 p.m. in a fairly open area and look to your left. The fuzzy Milky Way path starts due south, moves upward past the bright star Sirius, under the bright planet Jupiter, towards the bright star Capella, through W-shaped Cassiopeia and down to due north on your right where the bright star Deneb sits just above the horizon.

Friday: The open star cluster called The Beehive Cluster is right below the moon throughout the night. They are six fists above due south at 9:30 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 March 14, 2026

Saturday: Venus is a half a fist held upright and at arm’s length above due west at 8:00 p.m.

Sunday: If you want to put somebody off, tell her or him to wait until Deneb sets. At Ellensburg’s latitude of 47 degrees, Deneb is a circumpolar star meaning it never goes below the horizon. At 10:15 p.m., it will be as close as it gets to the horizon, about two degrees above due north. Watch it reach this due north position about 4 minutes earlier each night.

Monday: Many artists have sung the song “Blue Moon”. But few have sung the song “Blue Planet”. It goes, in part “Blue Planet, you saw me standing with 28 others. Rolling around like a barrel. Without close sisters or brothers.” It’s about the planet Uranus, which orbits the Sun in a rolling motion and has 28 moons. 25 of Uranus’ moons are named after characters in works by William Shakespeare and three are from the poem “The Rape of the Lock” by Alexander Pope. Uranus is two and a half fists above due west at 10:00 p.m. It is half a fist below the Pleiades open star cluster.

Tuesday: Ask someone which day in March has the same duration day and night. Go ahead, ask someone. Why are you still reading this? I can wait. If that person said the first day of spring, they are wrong. Today, a few days before the first day of spring, is the date in which day and night are closest in duration in central Washington. Go to https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/ to find the day for your city. It will be close to today for all USA cities.

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 already below the horizon. This makes the Sun appear to rise before it actually rises and appear to set after it actually sets. Second, spring starts when the center of the Sun passes through the point called the vernal 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 spring would still be longer than 12 hours.

Wednesday: Jupiter is six and a half fists above the south-southwestern horizon at 9:00 p.m.

Thursday: If you know exactly where to look in the sky, you can see a few bright planets when the Sun is out. The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, or SOHO, is always watching the sky when the Sun is out… because it is always watching the Sun! Most of the SOHO images are filtered images of the Sun’s photosphere, the top of the visible layer. But two images, LASCO C2 and C3, place a mask over the Sun to observe the Sun’s corona as well as solar system objects that pass near the Sun, including comets. For more about using SOHO to observe comets, go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8yUa8_EAUc.

Friday: Look up in the sky. It’s a plane. It’s a bird. No, it’s the vernal equinox. The vernal equinox!? Spring starts at 7:45 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time. The first day of spring is often called the vernal equinox. This label for the day is misleading. The vernal equinox is actually the point in the sky where the Sun’s apparent path with respect to the background stars (called the ecliptic) crosses the line that divides the stars into northern and southern celestial hemispheres (called the celestial equator). This point is in the constellation Pisces the fishes. At the vernal equinox, the Sun is moving from the southern region of background stars to the northern region.

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 March 7, 2026

Saturday: Don't forget to set your clocks ahead one hour tonight for the annual ritual called daylight savings. Daylight savings originated in the United States during World War I to save energy for the war effort. But a recent study by two economists shows that switching to daylight savings time may actually lead to higher utility bills. When the economists compared the previous few years of energy bills in the section of Indiana that just started observing daylight savings, they discovered that switching to daylight savings cost Indiana utility customers $8.6 million in electricity. In an even more important consequence of daylight savings, Stanley Coren of the University of British Columbia discovered a 7% jump in traffic accidents on the Monday after we "spring ahead". Blame it on the lost hour of sleep. And, sky watchers will lose even more sleep because the sky stays light for an additional hour.

There are three planets clustered in the sky a half a fist above the western horizon at 6:30 p.m. Venus is by far the brightest of the three. Saturn is to the left of Venus, about one degree away. Most people won’t be able to squeeze their pinky between them. Neptune is the same distance below Venus, but you’ll need large binoculars or a small telescope to see it.

Sunday: Jupiter is six fists above the southwestern horizon at 9:00 p.m.

Monday: “Oooo, they’re little runaways. Orion’s stars moved fast. Tried to make a getaway. Ooo-oo, they’re little runaways,” sang Bon Jovi in his astronomical hit “Runaway. At least that’s what I hear when I listen to the song. After all, it fits the recently calculated trajectory of AE Aurigae, Mu Columbae, and 53 Arietis. Extrapolating the actual motion of these three stars back in time, they were all in the location of the star-forming region called the Orion Nebula a few million years ago. What kicked these stars out? Not paying rent? Excessive partying? No, it was simply gravitational interactions with near-by stars. Find out more about the eviction at http://goo.gl/UeLwKQ. The Orion Nebula is visible with the naked eye from a very dark site, about two fists above the southwestern horizon at 10:00 p.m.

Tuesday: The moon is about one and a half fists above due south at 6:30 a.m. The bright star Arcturus is about a pinky width above it.

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 unbelievably bad spy movie dialogue is to remind you that Corvus had an unbelievably 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 one fist above the southeastern horizon at 11:00 p.m.

Thursday: While you were looking through your underwear drawer for clean socks, some citizen scientists were looking through sky maps obtained by robotic telescopes to find brown dwarfs. The project, called Backyard Worlds: Cool Neighbors, allows anyone with a computer and internet connection to search through thousands of images to find these strange objects that are midway between being classified as large planets and small stars. Some brown dwarfs can have surface temperatures of thousands of degrees Celsius. The recently discovered ones are cooler than the boiling point of water and may even have clouds of water vapor! Read more about the discovery and how you can participate in this project at https://noirlab.edu/public/blog/newly-launched-backyard-worlds/.

Friday: If you are lucky, you may be able to see Mercury just above the eastern horizon at 6:50 a.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 March 28, 2026

Saturday:  Some people in town today for the Yakima River Canyon Marathon may have been looking for a little running inspiration. While nothing can take the place of a 20-mile run for marathon preparation (I know), certain objects in the night sky are inspiring. In the Bible, Job specifically mentions the star Arcturus, or the bear keeper, to his friend as a sign of God's majesty. He describes God as that "Which maketh Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades, and the chambers (constellations) of the south" (Job 9:9, King James Version). Whatever your religious beliefs, it is clear that Job was impressed with this very bright star. See the star that inspired Job about two and a half fists held upright and at arm’s length above due east at 10:00 p.m. Also, Orion is two fists above the west-southwestern horizon and Pleiades is two fists above the western horizon.

Sunday: Venus is one fist above the west-northwestern horizon at 8:15 p.m. Jupiter is six and a half fists above the southern horizon at this time.

Monday: Thursday: Last week you looked at something fuzzy, the Milky Way. So, reward yourself tonight by looking at something sharp and detailed. The OSIRIS-REx mission sent back the highest resolution global map of any Solar System object, the asteroid Bennu. Using pictures taken from just three to five kilometers above the surface, the map has a resolution of five centimeters per pixel, the most detailed map of any object other than Earth. Go to https://www.asteroidmission.org/bennu_global_mosaic/ to download the map. 

Tuesday: Have you ever seen a Black Hole? Neither have scientists. But they have seen the effects of a Black Hole. 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 five and a half fists above the eastern horizon at 6:00 a.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: The Global Astronomy Month (GAM) of April starts today. Go to https://my.astronomerswithoutborders.org/programs/global-astronomy-month for more information about events. If you want to take a chance on a spur of the moment event, visit their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/astronomerswithoutborders/

Thursday: Mercury is a half a fist above the east-southeastern horizon at 6:15 a.m.

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 February 28, 2026

Saturday: If you ask an astrobiologist for the three most likely places to find evidence of life in the Solar System, other than Earth, they’d probably say Mars, Europa (“Didn’t they sing “The Final Countdown” in the 1980?”), and Enceladus. Mars makes sense because you know scientists have sent a lot of probes there. Enceladus, one of Saturn’s moons, is an up-and-coming interest that first piqued astrobiologists’ interest a few years ago when NASA’s Cassini probe discovered jets of water containing organic materials shooting out. Between the pop culture alien hot spot of Mars and the new favorite is Jupiter’s moon Europa. Astronomers first discovered compelling evidence of a large water ocean on Europa in 1989 during a Galileo flyby. Over the next few years, NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) will be on their way to Europa. For a preview of the NASA Europa Clipper mission, go to https://youtu.be/q88fSdGMbys. At 7:00 p.m., Jupiter is six fists held upright and at arm’s length above the southeastern horizon and Saturn is half a fist above the western horizon. Mars is too close to the Sun in the sky to be visible until May.

Sunday: March to-do list: 1) Move clocks ahead an hour for daylight saving time, 2) Start Spring cleaning, 3) Discover exoplanets. Hmm. One of these is not like the other. NASA has set up a program through which you can learn about exoplanets, observe exoplanets, analyze their data, and submit it to a repository for astronomers to use for their research. Exoplanets are any planets outside our solar system. For more information about this project, go to https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/exoplanet-watch/.

Monday: Antares is a fist and a half above due south at 5:45 a.m.

Tuesday: There is a total lunar eclipse tonight. Total lunar eclipses are not as noticeable as total solar eclipses because light still reaches the Moon even when it is completely blocked by the Earth. That is because the Earth’s atmosphere acts like a lens and bends rays of light toward the Moon that would normally miss the Moon. However, that doesn’t mean the Moon looks the same during a total lunar eclipse as it does during a normal full moon.

Sunlight is white. White light is the sum of all of the colors in the visible spectrum (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet). Our atmosphere scatters the blue component of the Sun’s white light. That is why our sky is blue. (If our atmosphere consisted of different gasses, we would likely have a different colored sky.) When the Sun or Moon is near the horizon, the light passes through a lot of the atmosphere meaning more of the blue end of the spectrum is scattered and the Sun or Moon looks redder than when it is high in the sky. During a total lunar eclipse, sunlight passes through a large slice of the Earth’s atmosphere. The remaining light that reaches the Moon is reddish. Some people say the fully eclipsed Moon looks Blood Red! These people exaggerate. It appears to be a dull reddish color.

From the perspective of Ellensburg in the Pacific Time Zone, the partial eclipse stage will start at 1:50 a.m. The Moon will slowly move into the Earth’s shadow and get dark from left to right. By 3:04 a.m., the Moon will be fully eclipsed. The total eclipse lasts until 4:02 a.m. The moon will be moving out of the earth’s darkest shadow or umbra until 5:17 a.m. After that, the moon will look white, just like a normal full moon. Thus, during the entire eclipse, the moon looks white, then black, then red all over. For more information about the eclipse, including information about the specific times for your location, go to https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/lunar/2026-march-3. 

Wednesday: Tonight is a great night to look for the Big Dipper. Tomorrow will be a great night to look for the Big Dipper. In fact, every night for many centuries will be great nights to look for the Big Dipper. But the Big Dipper’s shape slowly changes over many centuries. Tens of thousands of years ago, it didn’t look like a dipper and tens of thousands of years from now, it will no longer look like a dipper. For a short video simulation of the changing Big Dipper, go to https://youtu.be/txJH8RlIoXQ. For a look at the current Dipper, face northeast at 8:00 p.m. The lowest star, Alkaid, is two and a half fists above the horizon.

Thursday: Avast ye matey. Swab the poop deck. Pirates love astronomy. In fact, the term “poop” in poop deck comes from the French word for stern (poupe) which comes from the Latin word Puppis. Puppis is a constellation that represents the raised stern deck of Argo Navis, the ship used by Jason and the Argonauts in Greek mythology. Argo Nevis was an ancient constellation that is now split into the constellations Puppis, Vela, and Carina. The top of Puppis is two fists above due south and about a fist and a half to the lower left of the bright star Sirius at 9:15 p.m. Zeta Puppis, the hottest, and thus the bluest, naked eye star in the sky at 40,000 degrees Celsius, is about a half a fist above due south at this time.

Friday: The bright star Sirius is two fists above the 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 February 21, 2026

Saturday: You’ve likely heard of the Big Dipper, the measuring cup-shaped set of stars that are part of the constellation Ursa Major. At 8:00 p.m., the end of the handle is two fists held upright and at arm’s length above the northeastern horizon with the rest of the dipper straight above it. But not all people saw these stars as a dipper. The Aztec, who lived in what is now central Mexico between the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico about 500 years ago, saw this part of the sky as the god Tezcatlipoca (Tez-kuht-luh-po’-kuh). Tezcatlipoca was typically an evil god who clashed with his brother, the kinder god Quetzalcoatl (Ket-suhl--kuh-wah’-tl). One day Tezcatlipoca tried to ruin Quetzalcoatl’s handiwork. Out of anger, Quetzalcoatl tossed Tezcatlipoca into the northern sky where he was forever forced to dance around the North Star, sometimes on his head, sometimes below the horizon.

Sunday: Are you going to skip a winter vacation because flights are too expensive? Then take a virtual vacation to a black hole. NASA scientists have just developed a visualization to show how light moves in the vicinity of a black hole. Book your ticket at https://www.nasa.gov/universe/nasa-visualization-shows-a-black-holes-warped-world/.

Monday: The weather has been chilly. It will feel good to think ahead about spring. The spring triangle, the nearly equilateral triangle of Spica, Arcturus, and Denebola, is called the spring triangle because the three stars are rising as the Sun is setting near the start of spring. Since spring is currently a month away, the three stars rise a few hours after sunset. By 11:00 p.m., the bright star Arcturus is two and a half fists above due east. Spica is one fist above the southeastern horizon. Denebola, the dimmest of the three but still the 60th brightest star in the night sky, is four and a half fists above the southeastern horizon.

Tuesday: At 7:00 p.m., Saturn is just under a fist above the western horizon. Mercury is just above the western horizon.

Wednesday: On these late winter mornings, it is still difficult to get going. You just want to plop into a chair and sit still. But are you really sitting still? You’re moving at about 700 miles per hour due to the rotation of the Earth on its axis and 66,000 miles per hour due to the revolution of the Earth around the Sun. If that’s not enough, the entire solar system is orbiting the center of the galaxy at a whopping 480,000 miles per hour! So, while you may be sitting still with respect to your living room (and all the overachievers in your house), you are NOT sitting still with respect to the center of the galaxy. For more information about this concept, go to https://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/docs/HowFast.pdf.

Thursday: Jupiter is less than a half a fist below the Moon at 9:00 p.m., about six and a half fists above the southern horizon.

Friday: More celestial evidence that spring is around the corner. The wintertime constellation Orion is moving towards the western horizon. Orion’s belt is about three fists above the 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.