The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of August 8, 2026

 Saturday: One minor Harry Potter character actually has two well-known star names: Regulus Arcturus Black, the brother of Harry Potter’s godfather Sirius Black. Regulus Black was a former follower of Voldemort, the bad guy of the Harry Potter series. However, Regulus tried to dissociate himself from Voldemort and was killed. In the sixth book, Harry found an important note written by someone known only by the initials R.A.B. Hmmm. R.A.B. Regulus Arcturus Black perhaps? Regulus the star is right in line with the Sun at this time of year, so it is not visible. Arcturus, the second brightest star visible in the nighttime sky in the northern United States and at Hogwarts, is two and a half fists held upright and at arm’s length above the western horizon at 11:00 p.m.

Sunday: Saturn is half a fist above due east at 11:00 p.m.

Monday: Bellatrix Lestrange is Sirius Black’s cousin. But certainly not kissing cousins. They are killing cousins. Bellatrix kills Sirius in a fight at the Ministry of Magic. Bellatrix the star is the third brightest star in the constellation Orion the hunter. It is about two fists above the east-southeastern horizon at 5:00 a.m.

Tuesday: Of course, Bellatrix is in cahoots with “he who must not be named”. Now, that’s a poorly written sentence, using an obscure synonym for “conspiring” and a vague reference to someone. I must be under the curse “writicus dreadfulium”. Clearly this is the work of Tom Riddle, whose mother is named Merope Gaunt. Merope is a star in the Pleiades, an open star cluster about five fists above the southeastern horizon at 5:00 a.m. Look lower in the sky to find Mars, three fists above the eastern horizon. Mercury is often difficult to spot because it is never far from the Sun in the sky. But this morning it is half a fist above the east-northeastern horizon and just to the lower right of the nearly new moon.

Wednesday: There’s a solar eclipse today. If you are planning to travel to Greenland, Iceland, or Spain, you’re in luck. You’ll see a total solar eclipse. Part of the Midwest and northeastern USA will see a partial solar eclipse. For details about the eclipse, including where to watch it live or by video, go to https://science.nasa.gov/eclipses/future-eclipses/total-solar-eclipse-on-august-12-2026/. 

The Perseid meteor shower peaks tomorrow morning. In case you decide to stay in bed this week, the shower is active until about September 1 so you may still enjoy an increased number of meteors later. The moon is in the new phase so even the dimmest meteors will be visible in good viewing conditions. The meteors appear to come from a point just below the W of the constellation Cassiopeia. This point is about three fists above the northeast horizon at 11:00 p.m. By dawn, this point is nearly straight overhead. For tips about optimizing your viewing this year, go to https://earthsky.org/?p=165416 As your mother might say, dress warmly and sit in a comfortable chair for maximum enjoyment. These meteors are sand to pea-sized bits of rock that fell off Comet Swift-Tuttle. They travel about 40 miles per second as they collide with the Earth and burn up in the atmosphere.

Thursday: Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter’s young nemesis, is related to Sirius Black. Draco’s mother, Narcissa Black (Sirius’ cousin), helped develop a plan to trap Harry at the Ministry of Magic in the fifth book. Draco’s namesake, the constellation Draco the dragon, is one of the largest constellations in the sky, winding around the North Star. Draco’s head is a four-sided figure a little on the northwest side of straight overhead at 10:00 p.m.

Friday: Antares, the brightest star in the constellation Scorpius, is one and a half fists above the south-southwestern horizon at 9:00 p.m. Draco Malfoy was so impressed with this constellation name that he used it for the first name of his son. Venus is half a fist above the western horizon at this time.

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

The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of August 1, 2026

Saturday: Star light. Star bright. The first star you see tonight might be Vega, nearly seven fists held upright and at arm’s length above the eastern horizon right after sunset.

Sunday: Mercury will be as far away from the Sun in the sky as it will get this orbital cycle. This "farthest away" point is known as the planet's greatest elongation. Since Mercury is in the morning sky, it is west of the Sun, and this occurrence is called the greatest western elongation. This morning, Mercury is a half a fist above the east-northeastern horizon at 5:00 a.m. Over the next few weeks, Mercury will move toward the Sun in the sky. By mid-October, it will be visible in the evening sky.

Monday: Venus is a half fist above the western horizon at 9:30 p.m. Saturn is a half a fist above the eastern horizon and a half a fist to the lower right of the Moon at 11:30 p.m.

Tuesday: It is often said that Earth is a water world because about 70% of the Earth’s surface is covered by water. What would it look like if all that water on the surface were gathered up into a ball? That “ball” would be about 700 km in diameter, less than half the diameter of the Moon. The Astronomy Picture of the day shows us right here https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120515.html.

Wednesday: The Gemini twins, first Castor and then Pollux, rise just before the Sun. At 5:00 a.m., Pollux is one fist above the northeastern horizon. Slightly dimmer Castor is half a fist above it. Pollux is the brightest star, as observed from Earth, known to have a planet orbiting it. The planet, creatively called Pollux b, has about twice the mass of Jupiter.

Thursday: If you want to show your loved ones a celestial sign that they should hang up their clothes, show them Brocchi's Cluster, commonly known as the Coat Hanger cluster because of its resemblance to an upside-down coat hanger. The cluster is about six fists above due south at 11:30 p.m., midway between Altair and Vega, the two brightest stars in the Summer Triangle. You'll need binoculars to make out the shape. First find Altair five fists above the southern horizon. Slowly move your binoculars up toward Vega. You will run into the coat hanger along the way. And while you are at it, put away your shoes.

Friday: Mars is three fists above the eastern horizon at 5:00 a.m. Saturn is four and a half fists above due south at this time.

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 July 25, 2026

Saturday: Venus is one fist held upright and at arm’s length above due west at 9:30 p.m.

Sunday: Have you ever planned a vacation to a place because it was supposedly the up-and-coming locale? Then, when the vacation time finally arrives, you find out the place doesn’t live up to its billing? Over the past decade, astronomers have revisited earlier findings about the planetary system of the star Tau Ceti, one of our closest Sun-like star neighbors at 12 light years away. It was originally thought to have four planets classified as “super-Earths” with two of the planets being on the edge of the habitable zone where the temperature is just right for having liquid water on their surface. Time for a va-ca-tion! Well, not so fast. Astronomers now think some of the planets may be too massive for complex life to form. And the Tau Ceti system has ten times as much mass in dust and rocks as our own solar system. On the plus side, if you want to save the Earth, the planet Tau Ceti e is the place to go. In the book and movie Project Hail Mary, Ryland Grace and the alien Rocky went there to discover how to kill the astrophage that was consuming the Sun’s energy.

Tau Ceti is two fists above the southeast horizon at 4:30 a.m. For more information about the system, go to https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/four-exoplanets-may-orbit-nearby-sun-like-star/.

Monday: Mars is two fists above the eastern horizon at 4:30 a.m. Saturn is four and a half fists above the south-southeastern horizon at this time.

Tuesday: Mizar is a well-known binary star in the constellation Ursa Major. You can find it at the bend in the Big Dipper handle, three fists above due northwest at midnight. Its name is Arabic for waistband. Mizar has an optical double called Alcor, which is less than a pinky width away and can easily be seen with the naked eye. Optical doubles are stars that are close together in the sky but do not orbit a common center of mass as true binary stars. Not wanting to deceive sky gazers who call Alcor and Mizar a binary star, two stars that DO orbit a common center of mass, Mizar actually is a binary. It was the first binary star system discovered using a telescope. Mizar A and Mizar B are about 400 astronomical units apart from each other and about 80 light years from Earth. 400 astronomical units is about 10 times the distance between the Sun and Pluto.

Wednesday: Tonight’s full moon is in the constellation Capricornus. The Wishram, Haida, and Tlingit people of the Pacific Northwest call the July full moon the salmon moon. This is the time of year the salmon return after spawning season.

Thursday: The Southern Delta Aquarid meteor shower peaks early, early this morning at 4:00 a.m. In case you want to sleep through the night, this shower has an extended peak into mid-August. Meteor showers are named after the constellation from which the meteors appear to originate. These meteors appear to come from a point in Aquarius near the star Delta Aquarii, also known as Skat. This point is about two and a half fists above the southern horizon at 4:00 a.m. The moon is close to full, obscuring the dimmer meteors. For more information about this year’s shower, go to https://earthsky.org/?p=159138. Meteors are tiny rocks that hit the Earth and burn up in the atmosphere.

Friday: The Perseid meteor shower peaks in a week and a half. But there will be an increased number of meteors over the next two weeks. If the Moon is out when you want to look, position yourself so you are blocked from the Moon’s light. The meteors appear to come from a point just below the W of the constellation Cassiopeia. This point is about two and a half fists above the northeast horizon at 11:00 p.m. By dawn, this point is about seven fists above the northeast horizon. If you fall asleep or forget to set your alarm, you will be able to observe this shower from about 11:00 p.m. to dawn for the next two weeks in about the same location in the sky.

The Perseid shower is one of the longest lasting showers. For tips about optimizing your viewing this year, go to https://earthsky.org/?p=165416 These meteors are sand to pea-sized bits of rock that fell from Comet Swift-Tuttle. They travel about 40 miles per second as they collide with the Earth and burn up in the atmosphere.

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 July 18, 2026

 Saturday: Venus is one fist held upright and at arm’s length above due west at 9:30 p.m.

Sunday: Zubenelgenubi, the second brightest star in the constellation Libra. The name means "southern claw", a holdover from the time when this part of the sky was associated with the neighboring constellation of Scorpius the scorpion. Zubenelgenubi is a binary star system, easily seen with binoculars as a white and yellow pair. To a person living on a planet orbiting the dimmer of the two stars, the brighter star would be nearly as bright as the full Moon appears from Earth. Zubenelgenubi is two fists above the southwestern horizon at 10:30 p.m.

Monday: Take a two and a half hour walk today. Too long, you say? 57 years ago today, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took the first ever walk by humans on another world. They spend two and a half hours setting up scientific instruments and collecting rocks for study back on Earth. Their colleague Michael Collins orbited the Moon in the spacecraft the astronauts would use to return to Earth. While everyone seems to know about Armstrong and Aldrin, spend some time learning more about Collins by reading https://time.com/5966399/michael-collins-appreciation/. The bright star Spica is a half a fist above the moon, low in the southwestern sky at 10:00 p.m.

Tuesday: Mars is two fists above the east-northeastern horizon at 4:30 a.m. Saturn is four fists above the southeastern horizon at this time.

Wednesday: Capella is the fourth brightest star we can see in Ellensburg. It is the most northerly bright star. It is a binary star consisting of two yellow giant stars that orbit each other every 100 days. At 10:17 p.m., Capella is less than a half a fist above due north.

Thursday: What you see with the naked eye isn’t all that can be seen. While astronomers can learn a lot from observing the sky in the visible wavelengths, many celestial objects radiate more light, and more information, in wavelengths such as radio, microwave, infrared, ultraviolet, x-ray, and gamma ray. In 2012, NASA launched the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) to study objects that radiate in the infrared range such as asteroids, cool dim stars, and luminous galaxies. For an interesting comparison of how different wavelengths show various aspects of celestial objects, go to http://goo.gl/nvuax. If it weren’t for infrared telescopes such as WISE, astronomers would not know about the significant amount of dust in galaxies. If you’d like to learn more about galaxies, the CWU Lydig Planetarium has free shows at 3:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. today. They are in Discovery Hall, room 101. Here is a Google maps link: https://maps.app.goo.gl/Nwp1e5t7qXk5bfE9. Parking on campus is free after 4:30 p.m.

Friday: The bright star Antares is about a half a fist to the upper right of the moon, low in the southern sky at 10:00 p.m. Being bright doesn’t necessarily mean being big. But in this case, it does. Antares is a red supergiant star. In the visible wavelengths, Antares shines 10,000 times brighter than the Sun. But since Antares is much cooler than the Sun, its energy distribution peaks in the infrared. So, across all wavelengths of light, Antares shines 60,000 times brighter than the 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 July 11, 2026

Saturday: Stonehenge was created on the island of Great Britain by Neolithic people. “Manhattanhenge” was created on the island of Manhattan by modern day architects and construction workers. Twice a year, at the end of May and mid-July, the setting Sun aligns perfectly with the Manhattan grid pattern. That means observers will see the Sun set at the end of the street. The first Manhattanhenge sunset of July is tonight at 8:20 p.m. Eastern time and then again tomorrow at 8:21 p.m. Eastern time. For more information about Manhattanhenge, go to https://www.amnh.org/research/hayden-planetarium/manhattanhenge.

Sunday: Since 2014, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission has been orbiting Mars gathering information about the Martian upper atmosphere. Studying the atmosphere and climate on other planets is crucial for helping scientists understand the Earth’s climate history and make better predictions about its future. Unfortunately, as of early July, the White House proposed 2025-26 budget cuts funding for this mission. While MAVEN may no longer be able to send valuable information back to Earth, Mars will always be visible to us. Mars is about two fists above the eastern horizon at 4:30 a.m., just above Aldebaran, a star of similar brightness. Saturn is about two fists above due southeast at this time.

Monday: Venus is one fist above the western horizon at 10:00 p.m.

Tuesday: Eleven years ago today, NASA’s New Horizons probe passed by Pluto. If the band Nirvana was still together, they’d probably rewrite one of their hit songs to be called Heart-Shaped Spot, after one of Pluto’s most distinctive features. “She eyes me like a dwarf planet when I am weak. I’ve been imaging your heart-shaped spot for weeks.” Astronomers think this heart-shaped spot is a large plain of nitrogen ice that consists of convective cells 10-30 miles across. Solid nitrogen is warmed in the interior of Pluto, becomes buoyant, and bubbles up to the surface like a lava lamp. You will find great pictures and information about what New Horizons found this past year at http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/. Pluto, itself, is one fist above the southeastern horizon at 11:00 p.m.

Hey, wait, I’ve got a new complaint. People should be more interested in astronomy. The best group to start with is children. If you are stuck at home, wondering what to do, go to the NASA Kids Club website at https://www.nasa.gov/kidsclub/. There are fun and educational activities for younger children. Older children may like my favorite NASA website - about planets outside our Solar System. I suggest first exploring the “Galaxy of Horrors!” at https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/alien-worlds/galaxy-of-horrors/.

Wednesday: GPS helps a lot of people find their way around the Earth, a planet they drive on all the time. Imagine how helpful it would be for the moon, a place that astronauts have not visited for over 50 years. The National Institute of Standards (NIST) has proposed using ultra stable lasers placed on the moon’s permanently shadowed craters. Even a little bit of heat causes the lasers to expand enough to make them too imprecise to accurately measure distances. Read more about this at https://www.space.com/astronomy/moon/lasers-in-moon-craters-could-create-a-lunar-gps-system. The moon is half a fist above the west-northwestern horizon at 9:30 p.m.

Thursday: The Southern Delta Aquarid meteor shower has a long gradual peak for the next few weeks into mid-August. Meteor showers are named after the constellation from which the meteors appear to originate. These meteors appear to come from a point in Aquarius near the star Delta Aquarii, also known as Skat. This point is about two and a half fists above the southeast horizon at 3:00 am early this morning. You can follow this point throughout the night and for the next few weeks, as it will remain a fist above Fomalhaut, the brightest star in that section of the sky. Read about the shower, at https://earthsky.org/?p=159138. 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.

Friday: Say "Cheese". 175 years ago, Vega, in the constellation Lyra the lyre, became the first star ever photographed. The photograph was taken at the Harvard Observatory using the daguerreotype process. Vega is the third brightest nighttime star we can see in Ellensburg, behind Sirius and Arcturus. Vega is nearly straight overhead at midnight.

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 July 4, 2026

Saturday: Let’s learn about Capella. It is the fourth brightest star we can see in Ellensburg. It is the brightest northerly star. It is a binary star consisting of two yellow giant stars that orbit each other every 100 days. At 11:30 p.m., Capella is a half a fist held upright and at arm’s length above due north. You can also use the Big Dipper to find it. First, find the two “cap” stars on the cup of the Big Dipper, the stars on the top of the cup. Draw a line from the “cap” star closest to the handle to the cap star farthest from the handle. Then, continue that line to the next very bright star, which is Capella. Thus, you can “cap” to Capella. If you can’t “cap” tonight, don’t worry. Capella is the brightest circumpolar star meaning it is the brightest star that never goes below the horizon from our point of view in Ellensburg.

Sunday: Look straight up at midnight. The head of Draco the dragon will be looking straight down on you. The brightest star in the head is called Eltanin. If you wait for a VERY long time, Eltanin will be the brightest star in the entire night sky. Currently 154 light years away, it is moving towards Earth and will be only 28 light years away in about 1.3 million years, claiming the title as the brightest star.

Monday: Hot enough for you? Don’t blame the Earth-Sun distance. Surprisingly, the overall temperature of the Earth is slightly higher in July, when the Earth is farthest from the Sun, than in January, when it is closest. That’s because in July, the Northern Hemisphere is tilted towards the Sun. (This is the real cause of the seasons.) The Northern Hemisphere has more land than the Southern Hemisphere. Thus, in July, the large amount of Northern Hemisphere land heats up the entire Earth about two degrees Celsius warmer than in January. In January, the watery Southern Hemisphere is tilted toward the Sun. But water does not heat up as fast as land, so the Earth is a few degrees cooler. The distance between the Earth and the Sun is its greatest today, 152.1 million kilometers. This is called aphelion from the Greek prefix “apo” meaning “apart” and Helios, the Greek god of the Sun.

Tuesday: While exploring Jezero crater on Mars in 2024, NASA’s Perseverance rover discovered an interesting looking rock they named Cheyava Falls. This rock contains iron and phosphate, elements that are often associated with microbial life, so the rover did some tests on the material. Late last year, NASA reported the rock contained sedimentary mud-like material associated with peat bogs and decaying organic matter on Earth. Scientists would need to bring the material to Earth for confirmation, but this is the best evidence yet for Mars having life in the past. For more information about this finding, watch https://youtu.be/kvcfO_-p6YE. For confirmation Mars exists, look one and a half fists above the eastern horizon at 4:30 a.m. At this same time, Saturn is about a half a fist below the moon, above due southeast.

Wednesday: The bright star Regulus is less than a pinky-width to the lower left of Venus, a fist and a half above the western horizon at 9:30 p.m. Jupiter is to the lower right of Venus, just above the west-northwestern horizon at this time.

Thursday: Nebulas are diffuse clouds of gas and dust where stars form. The second brightest is the Lagoon Nebula, in the constellation Sagittarius. It is visible with the naked eye from a very dark site however it is best viewed with binoculars. At 11:30 p.m., find the teapot-shaped asterism of Sagittarius about a fist above the southern horizon. Look at the triangle-shaped spout on the right side of the teapot. Spread out your thumb and forefinger to match the height of the triangle. Then look at that same thumb-forefinger span above the triangle. The Lagoon Nebula is there. Aim your binoculars at that spot.

If you’d like to learn more about nebulas, the CWU Lydig Planetarium has free shows at 3:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. today. They are in Discovery Hall, room 101. Here is a Google maps link: https://maps.app.goo.gl/Nwp1e5t7qXk5bfE9. Parking on campus is free after 4:30 p.m.

Friday: About ten years ago astronomers using a radio telescope in Australia discovered the source of fleeting radio signal bursts that had been a mystery for 17 years. And they didn’t have to probe the depths of deep space. They only had to probe the depths of… the observatory kitchen. It turns out the signal came from opening the microwave door prematurely. Read more about The Microwave Emission here: http://goo.gl/Ftb04C. Sheldon Cooper used similar methods of science when he discovered a can opener instead of magnetic monopoles in the season three premiere of “The Big Bang Theory” http://goo.gl/kAEoOD.

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 June 28, 2026

Saturday: Nearly 400 years ago, Galileo looked at the Pleiades star cluster through his telescope and noticed that the seven or so stars in the region visible to the naked eye became many more. There are two main types of star clusters. Open star clusters, like the Pleiades and the Beehive, are groups of a few dozen to a few thousand stars that formed from the same cloud of gas and dust within our galaxy. Stars in open star clusters are young as far as stars go. Globular clusters are groups of up to a few million stars that orbit the core of spiral galaxies such as our own Milky Way. One of the most well-known star clusters is the globular cluster in Hercules, an object that is fairly easy to find with binoculars. First find Vega, the bright bluish star six and a half fists held upright and at arm’s length above the eastern horizon at 11:00 p.m. Two fists above Vega, and close to straight overhead, is a keystone shape that represents the body of Hercules. Aim your binoculars at the upper left-hand star of the keystone, the star closest to straight overhead. The globular cluster is one third of the way to the rightmost star of the keystone. It looks like a fuzzy patch on the obtuse angle of a small obtuse triangle. If you don’t know what an obtuse angle is, you should not have told your teacher, “I’ll never need to know this math stuff you are teaching”.

Sunday: Jupiter is about a half a fist above the west-northwestern horizon at 9:45 p.m. Mercury is below it, likely too close to the horizon to be visible. They are moving towards the Sun in the sky and will soon be lost in its glare. At one and a half fists above the western horizon, Venus is still far enough from the Sun in the sky to be visible in the evening sky for a few more weeks.

Monday: The July full moon is the Buck Moon, named for the new antlers that form on the forehead of male deer this time of year.

Tuesday: Happy Asteroid Day (http://www.asteroidday.org/), the day we celebrate avoiding the destruction of the Earth by an undiscovered asteroid. There are about a million asteroids in the Solar System with the potential to strike Earth and destroy a city. Astronomers have discovered only 1% of them. Asteroid Day is an effort to educate the public and encourage policy makers to fund this important effort. King Tut may have celebrated an ancient Asteroid Day by asking his assistants to make a dagger out of a broken-off asteroid that landed on Earth. Astronomers discovered that the blade of the knife contained much more nickel than is found in terrestrial iron, an amount consistent with iron meteorites, especially with one found in the year 2000 in the Kharga region in northern Egypt. For more information about the dagger, go to http://goo.gl/BHBivd.

Wednesday: Mizar is a star in the middle of the Big Dipper handle. Don’t confuse Mizar with its rhyming brother Izar in the constellation Boötes. Izar is also a binary star with about the same apparent brightness. And both were featured in different episodes of Star Trek. Izar was featured in the Star Trek episode “Whom Gods Destroy” from the original series. It is the base of Fleet Captain Garth, a former big shot in the federation and one of Kirk’s heroes before he went insane. Garth kidnaps Kirk and Spock before eventually being outsmarted. Mizar doesn’t play as big a role in its episode. It is the star of the home world of one of the alien species in The Next Generation episode “Allegiance”. Izar is one fist above the bright star Arcturus and exactly six fists above the west-southwestern horizon at 11:00 p.m. Mizar is nearly six fists above the west-northwestern horizon.

Thursday: Being in a coma is a bad thing. Looking at the Coma Star Cluster is a good thing. The Coma Star Cluster is an open cluster of about 50 stars that takes up more space in the sky than 10 full Moons. It looks like a fuzzy patch with the naked eye. Binoculars reveal dozens of sparkling stars. A telescope actually diminishes from the spectacle because the cluster is so big and the telescope’s field of view is so small. The Coma Star Cluster is in the faint constellation Coma Berenices (ba-ron-ice’-ez) or Queen Berenice’s hair. Queen Berenice of Egypt cut off her beautiful hair as a sacrifice to the gods for the safe return of her husband Ptolemy III from battle. The Coma Star Cluster is about three fists above the western horizon at 11:00 p.m.

Friday: Mars is about one and a half fists above the east-northeastern horizon at 4:30 a.m., halfway between the Pleiades and Hyades open star clusters. But that’s not the most interesting thing about looking at Mars this morning. The planet Uranus is right above Mars in the sky this morning. Uranus is not quite bright enough to be visible to the naked eye. But it is easily visible with binoculars, right above Mars.

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.