The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of October 31, 2026

Saturday: Happy Celtic New Year’s Eve! 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. 

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 utilized 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.

The Sunshine Protection Act passed the US House of Representatives in July of 2026 but there is no senate vote scheduled. If passed, the bill would make daylight saving permanent. Most sleep experts think that permanent daylight saving would negatively impact sleep cycles.

Sunday: You can start your night sky watching before dinner because the Sun sets one hour earlier. Saturn is one and a half fists above the eastern horizon at 5:30 p.m.

Monday: This morning is a great opportunity to find two planets during the day using binoculars. First, find the moon at 8:00 a.m., five fists held upright and at arm’s length above the southwestern horizon. Aim your binoculars at the moon. Then move them to the upper left about one or two binocular fields of view to find Jupiter. You may be able to move your binoculars away from your eyes and still see Jupiter, now that you know where to look. Now move your binoculars back to the moon. Move the moon to the bottom of your field of view. Mars should be visible to the upper right of the moon.

Tuesday: The two meteor showers centered in the constellation Taurus peak this week and next. That means there will be increased meteor activity in Taurus.

The Southern Taurid meteor shower peaks for the next three nights. These are slow moving meteors that result in the occasional fireball. The Taurid meteor showers produce a few bright meteors every hour. The waning crescent moon will be below the horizon throughout much of the prime viewing time this week. 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.

Wednesday: Fomalhaut is one and a half fists above due south at 8:00 p.m.

Thursday: Procyon, the brightest star in Canis Minor, the smaller dog, is a little less than one fist above due east at 11:00 p.m. Procyon means “before the dog” in ancient Greek, a fitting name because it always rises a few minutes before Sirius, nicknamed “the dog star”.

Friday: In 2020, 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. In 2022, astronomers concluded that the original scientists found the signature of sulfur dioxide, not life. In 2023, the private company Rocket Lab published details about the first privately funded mission to another planet - their trip to Venus. The launch has been delayed until further notice. 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 6:15 a.m. tomorrow. Venus is a fist above the east-southeastern horizon at this time, just above the waning crescent moon. Read more about the potential mission at https://rocketlabcorp.com/missions/launches/first-private-mission-to-venus/.

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 24, 2026

Saturday: Halloween is a week from today. If you need costume ideas, look low in the sky at 7:15 p.m. Arcturus is about one fist held upright and at arm’s length 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 about 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. Inspiration from 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 and planets featured in popular fiction, go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stars_and_planetary_systems_in_fiction.

Sunday: Tonight’s moon is full. The October full moon is called the Full Hunter's Moon. The traditional Northern Hemisphere harvest time has ended so this is the month that many groups of people turned to hunting to build up their food supplies before winter. Also, since the Moon is full, it lights the sky the entire night, extending the time for nighttime activities.

Monday: Saturn is three and a half fists above due southeast at 9:00 p.m.

Tuesday: Did you know that moons and dwarf planets share some 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 half a fist below the moon in the east-northeastern sky. Place the moon to the top of your binoculars field of view. Uranus will be at the bottom of the field of view. Uranus is the object that will have moved over the course of a few nights.

Wednesday: 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.

Thursday: Jupiter is five fists above due southeast at 6:30 a.m. Mars is a half fist to the upper right of Jupiter.

Friday: Halloween weekend is a great time to celebrate the dead. Dead stars, that is. Black holes and neutron stars are the end of life for 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 heavier elements that can no longer produce energy through nuclear fusion. Without the outward radiation pressure from fusion energy 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 two and a half 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 17, 2026

Saturday: Saturn is three and a half fists held upright and at arm’s length above due southeast at 9:30 p.m.

Sunday: The constellation Vulpecula, the little fox, stands nearly six fists above due southwest at 9:00 p.m. It is in the middle of the Summer Triangle, which is defined by the bright stars Vega, Deneb, and Altair. First find Deneb, the bright star nearly straight overhead. It is at the tail of the constellation Cygnus the swan. Move your eyes down towards the horizon and through the long neck of the swan. The fox is so faint that you need very dark skies to see it. While dim, it has a lot to offer astronomers. The first pulsar ever discovered is in Vulpecula. So is one of the closest extrasolar planets with water in its atmosphere.

Monday: At 6:30 a.m., Jupiter is four and a half fists above the southeastern horizon. Mars is one fist to the upper right of Jupiter at this time.

Tuesday: 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 until dawn for the next three mornings. 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 will be in the waxing crescent phase, obscuring dimmer meteorites. 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 miss it these next few mornings, you can catch the tail end of the shower every night until early November. For more information, go to https://earthsky.org/?p=27937.

Wednesday: The bright star Capella is two fists above due northeast at 9:00 p.m.

Thursday: 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.

Friday: Halloween is a week from tomorrow 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.

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 10, 2026

Saturday: “I’m a little teapot, short and stout. The galactic center, I pour it out.” (I’m a Little Teapot, astronomy version, 2026.) Despite its great size and importance, the center of our Milky Way galaxy and its giant black hole remain hidden to the naked eye behind thick clouds of gas and dust. By plotting the orbits of stars near the middle of the galaxy, astronomers have determined that the black hole’s mass is equal to about 4.5 million Suns. While you can’t see the actual galactic center, you can gaze in the direction of the center by looking just to the right of the teapot asterism in the constellation Sagittarius. This point is about a half a fist held upright and at arm’s length above the south-southwestern horizon at 8:00 p.m.

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

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

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

Wednesday: It is time to start thinking about the Orionid meteor shower. This shower, which consists of the earth colliding with pieces of the remains of Halley's Comet's tail, peaks on the morning of October 21 but produces meteors from early October until early November. These meteors appear to come from a point in Orion, the hunter. This point is about one fist above the eastern horizon at midnight. You can follow this point throughout the night as it will remain near the prominent reddish star Betelgeuse (pronounced Bet'-el-jews). The Orionid meteors are fast - up to 40 miles per second. For more information about the Orionids, go to https://earthsky.org/?p=27937.

Thursday: Look up in the sky. It’s a bird. It’s a plane. It’s a dolphin. A dolphin? The constellation Delphinus the dolphin is nearly six fists above due south at 8:00 p.m. The constellation’s two brightest stars are called Sualocin and Rotanev, which is Nicolaus Venator spelled backwards. Venator worked at the Palermo Observatory in Italy in the mid nineteenth century. He slipped these names into Giuseppe Piazzi’s star catalog without him noticing. Sort of like when you would sneak snacks into your parent’s shopping cart, hoping they would not notice.

Friday: Rho Cassiopeiae is the most distant star that can be seen with the naked eye by most people. It is about 8,200 light years away. That means that the light that reaches your eyes from that star left over 8,000 years ago, before the beginning of time according to the Byzantine calendar. Rho Cassiopeiae is nearly straight overhead at 11:00 p.m., just above the zigzag line that marks the constellation Cassiopeia.

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

The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of October 3, 2026

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

Sunday: Saturn is in opposition tonight. That doesn’t mean that Saturn is stubborn. Opposition means that Saturn is on the opposite side of the Earth as the Sun. When an object is in opposition, it is at its highest point in the sky during the darkest time of the day. Thus, opposition is typically the best time to observe a planet. Saturn is about three and a half fists held upright and at arm’s length above due south at 1:00 a.m. It is nearly two fists above due southeast at 10:00 p.m. Careful readers of this column may recall that Saturn is in opposition about 12 days later each year: August 1, 2021, August 14, 2022, August 26, 2023, September 7, 2024, and September 20, 2025. An outer planet is in opposition when Earth passes it up as both orbit the Sun. The farther out a planet is, the less it has moved along its orbit, and the closer it is to exactly one year from one Earth passing to the next. For comparison, it is about 18 months between successive oppositions for Mars. Saturn is three fists above due southeast at 10:30 p.m.

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

Tuesday: The Draconid meteor shower peaks for the next four nights with Thursday night being the best. The meteors appear to come from a point in the head of Draco, the dragon constellation. This point is nearly straight overhead at 7:00 p.m. tonight. This point remains near the trapezoid-shaped head of Draco throughout the night. Unlike most meteor showers, this one is best observed in the early evening rather than after midnight. Call this the “early to bed” meteor shower. Draconid meteors are slow moving which means you will have an easy time differentiating true Draconid meteors, from Comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner, from the stray grains of dust that happen to enter the Earth’s atmosphere every day and night. Luckily, the moon is in the waning crescent phase, close to new, meaning it won’t interfere much with viewing. For everything you need to know about the Draconid meteor shower, go to https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/everything-you-need-to-know-draconid-meteor-shower

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

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

Friday: The Milky Way makes a faint white trail from due northeast, by the moon, through straight overhead to due southwest at 9:00 p.m. Starting in the northeast, the Milky Way “passes through” the prominent constellations Auriga the charioteer, Cassiopeia the queen, and Cygnus the swan with its brightest star, Deneb, nearly straight overhead. After Cygnus, you’ll see Aquila the eagle with its brightest star Altair about four and a half fists above the southwest horizon.

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

The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of September 26, 2026

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

Sunday: You learned about Cassiopeia last week. Over 200 years ago, the astronomer Caroline Herschel discovered an open star cluster that looks like a rose. This cluster, called Caroline’s Rose, is about 6,500 light years away and consists of about 1,000 stars that are one third the age of the Sun. Through binoculars, it looks like a fuzzy patch. At 9:00 p.m., find the star at the top of the sideways “W” known as Cassiopeia. It is five and a half fists held upright and at arm’s length above due northeast. When that star is in the lower left portion of your binocular field of view, Caroline’s Rose is in the center to upper right. For more information about Caroline’s Rose, go to https://stardate.org/radio/program/2020-09-09.

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

Tuesday: Need a caffeine pick-me-up? Make it a double. Need an astronomy pick-me-up? Make it a double double. Find the bright bluish star Vega, in the constellation Lyra the lyre, six fists above due west at 9:30 p.m. Less than half a fist above Vega is the “star” Epsilon Lyra. If you look at Epsilon Lyra through binoculars, it looks like two stars. If you look at Epsilon Lyra through a large enough telescope, you will notice that each star in the pair is itself a pair of stars.  Each star in the double is double. Hence, Epsilon Lyra is known as the double double. The stars in each pair orbit a point approximately in the center of each respective pair. The pairs themselves orbit a point between the two pairs.

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

Thursday: Since Halloween is a month away, the stores are filled with bags of candy clusters. Use this reminder to take time to look at a star cluster. The Hyades cluster is an open star cluster that represents the V-shaped face of Taurus the bull. It is one of the biggest and nearest star clusters with about 200 stars 150 light years away. The Hyades cluster was the first cluster to be the subject of detailed motion studies. These studies allowed astronomers to pinpoint the distance to the Hyades and provide essential information about the scale of the universe. Aldebaran, about one fist above the eastern horizon at 11:00 p.m., is a foreground star and not a part of the Hyades cluster.

Friday: In 1987, the rock group Def Leppard sang “Pour some sugar on me, in the name of love. Pour some sugar on me, come on, fire me up”. In 2012, some European astronomers “found some sugar near stars, they were very young. Found some sugar near stars, out where planets formed.” Astronomers observed molecules of glycolaldehyde, a simple form of sugar, in the disk of gas and dust orbiting young binary stars. This is the first time astronomers have found this simple sugar so close to a star indicating that organic molecules can be found in planet-forming regions of stars. For more information, go to http://goo.gl/tfwy1.

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

The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of September 19, 2026

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

Sunday: To the people of Ancient Greece, the stars that are about five and a half fists above the northeastern and eastern horizons, respectively, at 10:30 p.m. were known as Cassiopeia and Andromeda, a mythological queen and her daughter. But not all cultures imagined the same pictures in the sky. To the people of Polynesia, the stars of Cassiopeia and Andromeda represented a dolphin, called Kwu. Cassiopeia formed its tail, the brightest stars of Andromeda formed its fins, and its fainter stars outlined the dolphin’s body.

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

Tuesday: At 5:00 p.m. PDT, the center of the Sun crosses the celestial equator and passes into the southern sky. The celestial equator is an imaginary line that divides the sky into a northern and southern half. When the Sun is in the southern half of the sky, it appears to take a shorter path from rising to setting. It also does not get as high in the sky at noon. This leads to shorter days and longer nights. Since the Sun crosses the celestial equator today, there is an instant when it is equally in the northern and southern sky, called the north and south celestial hemispheres. This so-called “equal night” is given by the Latin word equinox. Thus, today is known as the Autumnal Equinox. However, the day and night are not of equal duration today. The sun rises at 6:49 a.m. and sets at 6:58 p.m. in the northern latitudes of the United States.

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

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

Friday: Ask someone which day in September has the same duration day and night. Go ahead, ask someone. Why are you still reading this? I’ll wait. If that person says the first day of autumn, they are wrong. Today, three days after the first day of autumn, is the date on which day and night are closest in duration. There are two main reasons for this. First, the atmosphere acts like a lens, bending light from the Sun above the horizon when the Sun is actually below the horizon. This makes the Sun appear to rise before it actually rises and appear to set after it actually sets. Second, fall starts when the center of the Sun passes through the point called the autumnal equinox. But the Sun is not a point. The upper edge of the Sun rises about a minute before the center of the Sun, and the lower edge sets a minute after the center of the Sun. Thus, even if we didn’t have an atmosphere that bends the sunlight, daytime on the first day of autumn would still be longer than 12 hours.

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