What's up in the sky 12/31/11
Today: Forget about that big bright ball in Times Square. You can mark the start of the new year with one of the sky’s own big bright balls. That perennial favorite New Year’s Day marker, Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, rises to its highest point in the sky a little after midnight on January 1. Thus, when Sirius starts to “fall”, the new year has begun. Look for Sirius about two and a half fists held upright and at arm’s length above due south at midnight.
Sunday: Today is the day we celebrate the anniversary of something new – a new classification of celestial objects. Giuseppe Piazzi discovered Ceres [pronounced sear’-ease], the first of what are now called “asteroids”, on January 1, 1801. Ceres is the largest asteroid in the belt between Mars and Jupiter. At first, Piazzi thought it was a star that didn’t show up on his charts. But, he noted its position changed with respect to the background stars from night to night. This indicated to him that it had to be orbiting the Sun. In August of 2006, Ceres got promoted to the status of “dwarf planet” by the International Astronomical Union.
Monday: Venus is one fist above the southeast horizon and Jupiter is five fists above the south-southeast horizon at 6 p.m.
Tuesday: Today’s weather forecast: showers. Meteor showers, that is. The Quadrantid meteor shower peaks over the next two nights. Meteor showers are named after the constellation from which the meteors appear to originate. That makes this shower mysterious because there isn’t any constellation with this name now. The shower was named after Quadrans Muralis, an obsolete constellation found in some early 19th century star atlases. These meteors appear to come from a point in the modern constellation Draco the dragon. This point is about three fists held upright and at arm’s length above the northeast horizon at 1 a.m. In good years, careful observers can spot about 100 meteors per hour. This year, the moon will be setting during the peak observation time so some of the dimmer meteors will be obscured by moonlight. Meteors are tiny rocks that hit the Earth and burn up in the atmosphere. Most meteors are associated with the path of a comet. This shower consists of the debris from an asteroid discovered in 2003. Keeping with the comet-origin paradigm, astronomers think the asteroid is actually an “extinct” comet, a comet that lost all of its ice as it passed by the Sun during its many orbits.
Wednesday: If the Sun looks big today, your eyes are not playing tricks on you. The Earth is at perihelion at about 5 p.m. If you dig out your Greek language textbook, you’ll see that peri- means “in close proximity” and helios means “Sun”. So, perihelion is when an object is closest to the Sun in its orbit, about 1.5 million miles closer than its average distance of 93 million miles. Since it is winter in the Northern Hemisphere now, the seasonal temperature changes must not be caused by the Earth getting farther from and closer to the Sun. Otherwise, we’d have summer when the Earth is closest to the Sun. The seasons are caused by the angle of the sunlight hitting the Earth. In the winter, sunlight hits the Earth at a very low angle, an angle far from perpendicular or straight up and down. This means that a given “bundle” of sunlight is spread out over a large area and does not warm the surface as much as the same bundle in the summer.
Thursday: Has it been tough to wake up this past week? It should have been because the sunrise has been getting a little later since summer started. I know. I know. December 22 was the shortest day of the year. But, because the Earth’s orbit around the Sun is elliptical and not circular, the Earth does not travel at a constant speed. It moves faster when it is closer to the Sun and slower when it is farther away. This leads to the latest sunrise occurring in early January, today for 2012, and the earliest sunset occurring in early December, not on the first day of winter, the shortest day of the year. On the first day of winter, however, the interval between sunrise and sunset is the shortest. For more information, go to http://goo.gl/C7Fyz.
Friday: Mercury is less than a half a fist above the southeast horizon and Saturn is three and a half fists above due south at 7 a.m.
The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
The Ellensburg sky for the week of 12/24/11
What's up in the sky 12/24/11
Today: What would that special someone want to see on the back of Santa’s sleigh when she gets up early Christmas morning to eat one of Santa’s cookies? A fruit cake? No. A barbell? Maybe to work off the fruitcake. A subscription to The Daily Record? Of course. But what she really wants is a ring. And if she looks out a south-facing window, she’ll see her ring. Saturn the ringed planet, that is. Saturn is three and a half fists held upright and at arm’s length above the south horizon at 7 a.m.
Sunday: Where is the one who has been born King of the Jews? We saw Jupiter being eclipsed by the Moon in the east and have come to worship him” (Matthew 2:2, Bruce Palmquist version, informed by Michael Molnar). There are many theories as to the physical explanation of the Star of Bethlehem, the celestial object that guided the wise men to the location of Jesus. Some people think it was a recurring nova, a star that explodes. Some think it was a close alignment of bright planets. Some think it was a miracle that requires no physical explanation. In 1991, astronomer Michael Molnar bought an ancient Roman Empire coin that depicted a ram looking back at a star. Aries the ram was a symbol for Judea, the birthplace of Jesus. The Magi, or “wise men”, who visited the baby Jesus practiced astrology and would have been looking in that region of the sky for the king prophesied in the Old Testament. Molnar, a modern day wise person, used sky simulation software to model the positions of planets and the Moon in the region of Aries. According to his model, Jupiter was eclipsed, or blocked, by the Moon on the morning of April 17, 6 BC. Molnar’s theory is supported by a book written by the astrologer of Constantine the Great in 334 AD. The book describes an eclipse of Jupiter in Aries and notes a man of divine nature born during this time. See http://www.eclipse.net/~molnar/ for more information.
Aries and Jupiter make an appearance in the Christmas sky tonight. At 8 p.m., Jupiter is five fists above the south horizon and the dim constellation Aries is about a fist and a half to the upper left of Jupiter.
Monday: Mercury is about a half a fist above the southeast horizon at 7 a.m.
Tuesday: Columbia the dove, representing the bird Noah sent out to look for dry land as the flood waters receded, is perched just above the ridge south of Ellensburg. Its brightest star Phact is about one fist above due south at 11 p.m.
Wednesday: Venus is about a half a fist above the southwest horizon at 6 p.m.
Thursday: Have you ever looked down on the ground and spotted a penny? In Yakima? While you were standing in Ellensburg? If you have, then you may be able to see the star Hamal as more than just a point of light. It has an angular diameter that can be directly measured from Earth. Hamal, the brightest star in the constellation Aries the ram, has the same angular diameter as a penny 37 miles away. (For comparison, the moon is about half the diameter of a penny held at arm’s length.) Hamal is six and a half fists above due south at 7:45 p.m.
Friday: NASA’s Kepler satellite recently found the first two Earth-sized planets orbiting a star other than the Sun. Don’t expect to travel there soon. For one thing, the star is nearly 1,000 light years away. For another, the two planets orbit extremely close to their star, much closer than Mercury orbits our Sun. The star, called Kepler 20, is in the constellation Lyra the lyre, two and a half fists above the west-northwest horizon. Read the short article in the journal Nature at http://goo.gl/TqdmT for more information.
The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.
Today: What would that special someone want to see on the back of Santa’s sleigh when she gets up early Christmas morning to eat one of Santa’s cookies? A fruit cake? No. A barbell? Maybe to work off the fruitcake. A subscription to The Daily Record? Of course. But what she really wants is a ring. And if she looks out a south-facing window, she’ll see her ring. Saturn the ringed planet, that is. Saturn is three and a half fists held upright and at arm’s length above the south horizon at 7 a.m.
Sunday: Where is the one who has been born King of the Jews? We saw Jupiter being eclipsed by the Moon in the east and have come to worship him” (Matthew 2:2, Bruce Palmquist version, informed by Michael Molnar). There are many theories as to the physical explanation of the Star of Bethlehem, the celestial object that guided the wise men to the location of Jesus. Some people think it was a recurring nova, a star that explodes. Some think it was a close alignment of bright planets. Some think it was a miracle that requires no physical explanation. In 1991, astronomer Michael Molnar bought an ancient Roman Empire coin that depicted a ram looking back at a star. Aries the ram was a symbol for Judea, the birthplace of Jesus. The Magi, or “wise men”, who visited the baby Jesus practiced astrology and would have been looking in that region of the sky for the king prophesied in the Old Testament. Molnar, a modern day wise person, used sky simulation software to model the positions of planets and the Moon in the region of Aries. According to his model, Jupiter was eclipsed, or blocked, by the Moon on the morning of April 17, 6 BC. Molnar’s theory is supported by a book written by the astrologer of Constantine the Great in 334 AD. The book describes an eclipse of Jupiter in Aries and notes a man of divine nature born during this time. See http://www.eclipse.net/~molnar/ for more information.
Aries and Jupiter make an appearance in the Christmas sky tonight. At 8 p.m., Jupiter is five fists above the south horizon and the dim constellation Aries is about a fist and a half to the upper left of Jupiter.
Monday: Mercury is about a half a fist above the southeast horizon at 7 a.m.
Tuesday: Columbia the dove, representing the bird Noah sent out to look for dry land as the flood waters receded, is perched just above the ridge south of Ellensburg. Its brightest star Phact is about one fist above due south at 11 p.m.
Wednesday: Venus is about a half a fist above the southwest horizon at 6 p.m.
Thursday: Have you ever looked down on the ground and spotted a penny? In Yakima? While you were standing in Ellensburg? If you have, then you may be able to see the star Hamal as more than just a point of light. It has an angular diameter that can be directly measured from Earth. Hamal, the brightest star in the constellation Aries the ram, has the same angular diameter as a penny 37 miles away. (For comparison, the moon is about half the diameter of a penny held at arm’s length.) Hamal is six and a half fists above due south at 7:45 p.m.
Friday: NASA’s Kepler satellite recently found the first two Earth-sized planets orbiting a star other than the Sun. Don’t expect to travel there soon. For one thing, the star is nearly 1,000 light years away. For another, the two planets orbit extremely close to their star, much closer than Mercury orbits our Sun. The star, called Kepler 20, is in the constellation Lyra the lyre, two and a half fists above the west-northwest horizon. Read the short article in the journal Nature at http://goo.gl/TqdmT for more information.
The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.
Friday, December 16, 2011
The Ellensburg sky for the week of 12/17/11
What's up in the sky 12/17/11
Today: Listen, do you want to know a secret? Do you promise not to tell? Whoa oh, oh. The Beatles certainly didn’t write this song about the Barringer meteorite crater in Arizona. Astronomers are studying this 50,000-year-old impact to learn more about our planet’s violent history as well as the physics of impacts throughout the solar system. If you’d like to be let in on some of these secrets, go to http://goo.gl/sqbBe.
Sunday: This morning’s Moon is nearly in the third quarter phase, the phase that occurs when the Sun, Earth, and Moon make a right angle and the left side of the Moon appears illuminated. I wrote “nearly” because the three objects make a right angle at 5 p.m. this evening, when the Moon is not even visible in Washington. It is visible about four fists above the southwest horizon at 7 a.m. Mars is one fist above the Moon.
Monday: Venus is one fist above the southwest horizon at 5 p.m.
Tuesday: Jupiter is five fists above due south at 8 p.m.
Wednesday: At 9:30 p.m., the Sun reaches its lowest point in the sky with respect to the background stars. This point is called the Winter Solstice. During the day that the Sun reaches this point, your noon time shadow is longer than any other day of the year. Also, the Sun spends less time in the sky on the day of the Winter Solstice than any other day making this the shortest day of the year. Even though it is the shortest day of the year, it is not the day with the latest sunrise or the earliest sunset. The latest sunrise is during the first week in January and the earliest sunset is during the second week in December. The Sun is at its southernmost point with respect to the background stars on the day of the winter solstice. This means the Sun spends the least amount of time above the horizon on that day. But, the Sun rise and set time depends on more than its apparent vertical motion. It also depends on where the Sun is on the analemma, that skinny figure-8 you see on globes and world maps. During the second week in December, the Sun is not quite to the bottom of the analemma. But, it is on the first part of the analemma to go below the horizon. During the first week in January, it is on the last part of the analemma to rise above the horizon. For more information on this, go to http://goo.gl/wE9nP.
Thursday: I know you’re staying up late to train yourself to wait up for Santa. So look out a south-facing window at 12:45 a.m. and see Sirius, the brightest star in the nighttime sky, as high as it ever gets in the sky. It is two and a half fists above due south.
Friday: 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 morning sky, it is west of the Sun and this occurrence is called the greatest western elongation. This morning and tomorrow morning will be the best mornings to observe Mercury for the next few weeks. Mercury is about a fist above the southeast horizon at 7 a.m. Over the next few weeks, Mercury will move toward the Sun in the sky. By late February, it will be visible in the evening sky.
The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.
Today: Listen, do you want to know a secret? Do you promise not to tell? Whoa oh, oh. The Beatles certainly didn’t write this song about the Barringer meteorite crater in Arizona. Astronomers are studying this 50,000-year-old impact to learn more about our planet’s violent history as well as the physics of impacts throughout the solar system. If you’d like to be let in on some of these secrets, go to http://goo.gl/sqbBe.
Sunday: This morning’s Moon is nearly in the third quarter phase, the phase that occurs when the Sun, Earth, and Moon make a right angle and the left side of the Moon appears illuminated. I wrote “nearly” because the three objects make a right angle at 5 p.m. this evening, when the Moon is not even visible in Washington. It is visible about four fists above the southwest horizon at 7 a.m. Mars is one fist above the Moon.
Monday: Venus is one fist above the southwest horizon at 5 p.m.
Tuesday: Jupiter is five fists above due south at 8 p.m.
Wednesday: At 9:30 p.m., the Sun reaches its lowest point in the sky with respect to the background stars. This point is called the Winter Solstice. During the day that the Sun reaches this point, your noon time shadow is longer than any other day of the year. Also, the Sun spends less time in the sky on the day of the Winter Solstice than any other day making this the shortest day of the year. Even though it is the shortest day of the year, it is not the day with the latest sunrise or the earliest sunset. The latest sunrise is during the first week in January and the earliest sunset is during the second week in December. The Sun is at its southernmost point with respect to the background stars on the day of the winter solstice. This means the Sun spends the least amount of time above the horizon on that day. But, the Sun rise and set time depends on more than its apparent vertical motion. It also depends on where the Sun is on the analemma, that skinny figure-8 you see on globes and world maps. During the second week in December, the Sun is not quite to the bottom of the analemma. But, it is on the first part of the analemma to go below the horizon. During the first week in January, it is on the last part of the analemma to rise above the horizon. For more information on this, go to http://goo.gl/wE9nP.
Thursday: I know you’re staying up late to train yourself to wait up for Santa. So look out a south-facing window at 12:45 a.m. and see Sirius, the brightest star in the nighttime sky, as high as it ever gets in the sky. It is two and a half fists above due south.
Friday: 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 morning sky, it is west of the Sun and this occurrence is called the greatest western elongation. This morning and tomorrow morning will be the best mornings to observe Mercury for the next few weeks. Mercury is about a fist above the southeast horizon at 7 a.m. Over the next few weeks, Mercury will move toward the Sun in the sky. By late February, it will be visible in the evening sky.
The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.
Thursday, December 8, 2011
The Ellensburg sky for the week of 12/10/11
What's up in the sky 12/10/11
Today: “Red Moon, you saw me sleeping alone. Before the Sun rises up. Before I turn on my phone.” Early risers will see a total lunar eclipse this morning, low in the western sky. During a total lunar eclipse, the Moon enters the earth’s shadow. Total lunar eclipses are not as obvious as total solar eclipses because light still reaches the Moon even when it is directly behind the Earth. That is because the Earth’s atmosphere acts like a lens and bends rays of light that would normally miss the Moon such that they hit the Moon. 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. When the Sun or Moon is near the horizon, the light passes through a lot of the atmosphere meaning a lot of the blue light 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. Thus, the Moon looks red during a total lunar eclipse. From our perspective in Washington, the Moon will start to enter the Earth’s shadow at 4:45 a.m. Totality starts a little after 6 a.m. By 7 a.m., the total eclipse will be over.
Sunday: Jupiter is five fists above due south at 9 p.m.
Monday: The Geminid meteor shower peaks at 10 a.m. tomorrow morning but will remain highly active throughout the next two nights. Meteor showers are named after the constellation from which the meteors appear to originate. These meteors appear to come from a point in Gemini the twins. This point is about three fists held upright and at arm’s length above the east-northeast horizon at 9 p.m. tonight. You can follow this point throughout the night as it will remain near the bright star Castor, the right hand star of the “twin” stars Pollux and Castor. This shower is typically one of the best ones of the year producing bright, medium speed meteors with up to 80 meteors per hour near the peak. Unfortunately, the Moon will be out throughout the night, obscuring most of the meteorites.
Most meteor showers occur when the Earth passes through the orbital trail of a comet. The broken off comet fragments collide with the earth and burn up in the atmosphere. Astronomers had searched for a comet source for this shower since 1862 when the shower was first observed. Finally, in 1983, astronomers discovered the object that created the fragments that cause the meteor shower. To their surprise, it was a dark, rock that looked like an asteroid, not a shiny icy comet. Astronomers named this object Asteroid 3200 Phaethon. But, they still don’t know if it an asteroid or if it is a comet with all of its ice sublimated away by many close passes by the Sun. For more information about 3200 Phaethon, go to http://goo.gl/LuwGW.
Tuesday: On these cold mornings, it is 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 of the over achievers in your house), you are NOT sitting still with respect to the center of the galaxy. For more information about this concept, go to http://goo.gl/lPVPS.
Wednesday: Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, is one fist above due southeast at 10 p.m.
Thursday: Mars is one fist above due east at midnight.
Friday: Regulus is less than a fist to the upper left of the Moon at 11 p.m.
The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.
Today: “Red Moon, you saw me sleeping alone. Before the Sun rises up. Before I turn on my phone.” Early risers will see a total lunar eclipse this morning, low in the western sky. During a total lunar eclipse, the Moon enters the earth’s shadow. Total lunar eclipses are not as obvious as total solar eclipses because light still reaches the Moon even when it is directly behind the Earth. That is because the Earth’s atmosphere acts like a lens and bends rays of light that would normally miss the Moon such that they hit the Moon. 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. When the Sun or Moon is near the horizon, the light passes through a lot of the atmosphere meaning a lot of the blue light 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. Thus, the Moon looks red during a total lunar eclipse. From our perspective in Washington, the Moon will start to enter the Earth’s shadow at 4:45 a.m. Totality starts a little after 6 a.m. By 7 a.m., the total eclipse will be over.
Sunday: Jupiter is five fists above due south at 9 p.m.
Monday: The Geminid meteor shower peaks at 10 a.m. tomorrow morning but will remain highly active throughout the next two nights. Meteor showers are named after the constellation from which the meteors appear to originate. These meteors appear to come from a point in Gemini the twins. This point is about three fists held upright and at arm’s length above the east-northeast horizon at 9 p.m. tonight. You can follow this point throughout the night as it will remain near the bright star Castor, the right hand star of the “twin” stars Pollux and Castor. This shower is typically one of the best ones of the year producing bright, medium speed meteors with up to 80 meteors per hour near the peak. Unfortunately, the Moon will be out throughout the night, obscuring most of the meteorites.
Most meteor showers occur when the Earth passes through the orbital trail of a comet. The broken off comet fragments collide with the earth and burn up in the atmosphere. Astronomers had searched for a comet source for this shower since 1862 when the shower was first observed. Finally, in 1983, astronomers discovered the object that created the fragments that cause the meteor shower. To their surprise, it was a dark, rock that looked like an asteroid, not a shiny icy comet. Astronomers named this object Asteroid 3200 Phaethon. But, they still don’t know if it an asteroid or if it is a comet with all of its ice sublimated away by many close passes by the Sun. For more information about 3200 Phaethon, go to http://goo.gl/LuwGW.
Tuesday: On these cold mornings, it is 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 of the over achievers in your house), you are NOT sitting still with respect to the center of the galaxy. For more information about this concept, go to http://goo.gl/lPVPS.
Wednesday: Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, is one fist above due southeast at 10 p.m.
Thursday: Mars is one fist above due east at midnight.
Friday: Regulus is less than a fist to the upper left of the Moon at 11 p.m.
The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
The Ellensburg sky for the week of 12/3/11
What's up in the sky 12/3/11
Today: The earliest sunset of the year occurs this week, about 4:13 p.m. This seems odd because the shortest day of the year, the winter solstice, isn’t for about two more weeks. The Sun is at its southernmost point with respect to the background stars on the day of the winter solstice. This means the Sun spends the least amount of time above the horizon on that day. But, the Sun rise and set time depends on more than its apparent vertical motion. It also depends on where the Sun is on the analemma, that skinny figure-8 you see on globes and world maps. During the second week in December, the Sun is not quite to the bottom of the analemma. But, it is on the leading edge of the analemma, the first section to go below the horizon.
Sunday: Venus, the brightest of the planets in the night sky, is a half a fist above the southwest horizon at 5 p.m.
Monday: Are you cold? Tired of the blowing snow? Then get up this morning and look at Saturn, the bright point of light two and a half fists above the southeast horizon at 6 a.m. Saturn will not make you warmer. But thinking about its ice moon Enceladus might. Enceladus has numerous geysers that spew ice particles with an aggressiveness that makes the Ellensburg wind feel wimpy – up to 1000 miles per hour. To learn more about Enceladus and its geysers, go to http://goo.gl/5J3iv. If you have a small telescope, you may be able to see Enceladus nearly touching the rings of Saturn this morning.
Tuesday: Jupiter is about a half a fist to the lower right of the Moon at 8 p.m.
Wednesday: “Hey baby! What’s your sign?”
“Ophiuchus, of course”
The Sun is in the same part of the sky as the stars of Ophiuchus from about November 29 to December 17. This is what astrologers mean when they say the Sun is “in” a constellation. Thus, if you were born between these dates, you should be an Ophiuchus. The fact that the horoscopes never list Ophiuchus is a major flaw of astrology. Astrology says that some of our characteristics are based on the location of the Sun at our birth. How can astrologers leave out three weeks from their system? That is like a scientist saying she can explain the results of her experiment every month of the year except early December. Ophiuchus was a mythical healer who was a forerunner to Hippocrates. According to myth, he could raise people from the dead. Maybe that is why he is ignored by astrology. Raising people from the dead is much less impressive than giving spot-on advice such as “Today is a good day to watch your finances.”
The bright stars of Ophiuchus rise just before the Sun. Rasalhague (pronounced Ras’-al-hay’-gwee), the brightest star, is about one fist held upright and at arm’s length above the east horizon at 6:30 a.m.
Thursday: When Galileo aimed his telescope towards the sky, he knew of only one Sun-like star: the Sun. By the early twentieth century, Annie Jump Cannon, Williamina Fleming and others had developed a scheme for classifying stars so astronomers could identify other Sun-like stars. But it wasn’t until the last few years that astronomers have discovered planets around Sun-like stars. Some astronomers estimate that one out of every four stars like our Sun may be orbited by Earth-like planets. Of course, the definition of Earth-like typically means a rocky planet about the mass and radius of the Earth orbiting at a distance where they can be liquid water. So don’t start saving up for that interstellar vacation yet. But over the next few years, satellites such as Kepler will start imaging Earth-like planets. Not long after that, astronomers will be able to study the atmospheres of those planets and look for clues that the planet might have life. If you want to find the most Earth-like planet in the solar system, look a half a fist above the east horizon at midnight. There you’ll see Mars. Yes, Mars. It is a rocky planet with a thin atmosphere that has solid water now and almost certainly had liquid water in the past.
Friday: Do you remember the relative positions of the Moon and Jupiter on Tuesday? Tonight at 8 p.m., the bright star Aldebaran is a half a fist to the lower right of the Moon.
The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.
Today: The earliest sunset of the year occurs this week, about 4:13 p.m. This seems odd because the shortest day of the year, the winter solstice, isn’t for about two more weeks. The Sun is at its southernmost point with respect to the background stars on the day of the winter solstice. This means the Sun spends the least amount of time above the horizon on that day. But, the Sun rise and set time depends on more than its apparent vertical motion. It also depends on where the Sun is on the analemma, that skinny figure-8 you see on globes and world maps. During the second week in December, the Sun is not quite to the bottom of the analemma. But, it is on the leading edge of the analemma, the first section to go below the horizon.
Sunday: Venus, the brightest of the planets in the night sky, is a half a fist above the southwest horizon at 5 p.m.
Monday: Are you cold? Tired of the blowing snow? Then get up this morning and look at Saturn, the bright point of light two and a half fists above the southeast horizon at 6 a.m. Saturn will not make you warmer. But thinking about its ice moon Enceladus might. Enceladus has numerous geysers that spew ice particles with an aggressiveness that makes the Ellensburg wind feel wimpy – up to 1000 miles per hour. To learn more about Enceladus and its geysers, go to http://goo.gl/5J3iv. If you have a small telescope, you may be able to see Enceladus nearly touching the rings of Saturn this morning.
Tuesday: Jupiter is about a half a fist to the lower right of the Moon at 8 p.m.
Wednesday: “Hey baby! What’s your sign?”
“Ophiuchus, of course”
The Sun is in the same part of the sky as the stars of Ophiuchus from about November 29 to December 17. This is what astrologers mean when they say the Sun is “in” a constellation. Thus, if you were born between these dates, you should be an Ophiuchus. The fact that the horoscopes never list Ophiuchus is a major flaw of astrology. Astrology says that some of our characteristics are based on the location of the Sun at our birth. How can astrologers leave out three weeks from their system? That is like a scientist saying she can explain the results of her experiment every month of the year except early December. Ophiuchus was a mythical healer who was a forerunner to Hippocrates. According to myth, he could raise people from the dead. Maybe that is why he is ignored by astrology. Raising people from the dead is much less impressive than giving spot-on advice such as “Today is a good day to watch your finances.”
The bright stars of Ophiuchus rise just before the Sun. Rasalhague (pronounced Ras’-al-hay’-gwee), the brightest star, is about one fist held upright and at arm’s length above the east horizon at 6:30 a.m.
Thursday: When Galileo aimed his telescope towards the sky, he knew of only one Sun-like star: the Sun. By the early twentieth century, Annie Jump Cannon, Williamina Fleming and others had developed a scheme for classifying stars so astronomers could identify other Sun-like stars. But it wasn’t until the last few years that astronomers have discovered planets around Sun-like stars. Some astronomers estimate that one out of every four stars like our Sun may be orbited by Earth-like planets. Of course, the definition of Earth-like typically means a rocky planet about the mass and radius of the Earth orbiting at a distance where they can be liquid water. So don’t start saving up for that interstellar vacation yet. But over the next few years, satellites such as Kepler will start imaging Earth-like planets. Not long after that, astronomers will be able to study the atmospheres of those planets and look for clues that the planet might have life. If you want to find the most Earth-like planet in the solar system, look a half a fist above the east horizon at midnight. There you’ll see Mars. Yes, Mars. It is a rocky planet with a thin atmosphere that has solid water now and almost certainly had liquid water in the past.
Friday: Do you remember the relative positions of the Moon and Jupiter on Tuesday? Tonight at 8 p.m., the bright star Aldebaran is a half a fist to the lower right of the Moon.
The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.
Friday, November 25, 2011
The Ellensburg sky for the week of 11/26/11
What's up in the sky 11/26/11
Today: Venus is less than a half a fist to the left of the 2-day-old Moon, just above the southwest horizon at 5 p.m. Tomorrow night at this time, Venus will be in nearly the same place but the Moon will have moved up and to the left.
Sunday: Most constellations don’t look like the object their name refers to. Most constellations don’t have such a simple to object to emulate as Triangulum. As you probably guessed, Triangulum is shaped like a princess. Wait…. Just a second…. I read my book wrong. Triangulum is shaped like a thin isosceles triangle. Mothallah is the only named star in the constellation. In Latin this star is called Caput Trianguli, the head of the triangle. Triangulum is seven fists held upright and at arm’s length above the south horizon at 9 p.m. It is pointing down and to the right with Mothallah being the southernmost star at this time of night. The Triangulum Galaxy can be seen with binoculars about a half a fist to the right of Mothallah.
Monday: Have you been shopping all weekend? Do you need an evening sky break? You deserve a big reward so make it a double. A Double Cluster, that is. The Double Cluster, also known as h and Chi Persei, consists of two young open star clusters in the constellation Perseus. Of course, young is a relative term as these clusters are about 13 million years old. Each cluster is spread out over an area about the same size as the full moon. To the naked eye, the Double Cluster shines with a steady, fuzzy glow. Binoculars resolve dozens of individual stars in the clusters. The Double Cluster is six and a half fists above the northeast horizon at 7 p.m., about a fist below the sideways “W” of Cassiopeia.
Tuesday: Jupiter is five fists above the south horizon at 10 p.m.
Wednesday: Do you like to look in a nursery and say “it’s a boy” or “it’s a girl”? Not me. I say, “It’s a star”. Of course, I like looking into a stellar nursery – a star forming region such as the Orion Nebula in the middle of Orion’s sword holder. The Orion Nebula looks like a fuzzy patch to the naked eye. Binoculars reveal a nebula, or region of gas and dust, that is 30 light years across. The center of the nebula contains four hot “baby” stars called the Trapezium. These hot stars emit the ultraviolet radiation that causes the Nebula’s gas to glow. The Orion Nebula is three fists above the southeast horizon at 11 p.m.
Thursday: Have you even 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 four and a half fists above the west horizon, in the middle of the neck of Cygnus the swan.
Friday: Finally. You can see Mars in the night sky and still get to bed before midnight. Mars is a half a fist above the east horizon at 11:57 p.m. Now, quick, run off to bed.
I am guessing that some of you don’t like the line of reasoning from Thursday: 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.
Today: Venus is less than a half a fist to the left of the 2-day-old Moon, just above the southwest horizon at 5 p.m. Tomorrow night at this time, Venus will be in nearly the same place but the Moon will have moved up and to the left.
Sunday: Most constellations don’t look like the object their name refers to. Most constellations don’t have such a simple to object to emulate as Triangulum. As you probably guessed, Triangulum is shaped like a princess. Wait…. Just a second…. I read my book wrong. Triangulum is shaped like a thin isosceles triangle. Mothallah is the only named star in the constellation. In Latin this star is called Caput Trianguli, the head of the triangle. Triangulum is seven fists held upright and at arm’s length above the south horizon at 9 p.m. It is pointing down and to the right with Mothallah being the southernmost star at this time of night. The Triangulum Galaxy can be seen with binoculars about a half a fist to the right of Mothallah.
Monday: Have you been shopping all weekend? Do you need an evening sky break? You deserve a big reward so make it a double. A Double Cluster, that is. The Double Cluster, also known as h and Chi Persei, consists of two young open star clusters in the constellation Perseus. Of course, young is a relative term as these clusters are about 13 million years old. Each cluster is spread out over an area about the same size as the full moon. To the naked eye, the Double Cluster shines with a steady, fuzzy glow. Binoculars resolve dozens of individual stars in the clusters. The Double Cluster is six and a half fists above the northeast horizon at 7 p.m., about a fist below the sideways “W” of Cassiopeia.
Tuesday: Jupiter is five fists above the south horizon at 10 p.m.
Wednesday: Do you like to look in a nursery and say “it’s a boy” or “it’s a girl”? Not me. I say, “It’s a star”. Of course, I like looking into a stellar nursery – a star forming region such as the Orion Nebula in the middle of Orion’s sword holder. The Orion Nebula looks like a fuzzy patch to the naked eye. Binoculars reveal a nebula, or region of gas and dust, that is 30 light years across. The center of the nebula contains four hot “baby” stars called the Trapezium. These hot stars emit the ultraviolet radiation that causes the Nebula’s gas to glow. The Orion Nebula is three fists above the southeast horizon at 11 p.m.
Thursday: Have you even 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 four and a half fists above the west horizon, in the middle of the neck of Cygnus the swan.
Friday: Finally. You can see Mars in the night sky and still get to bed before midnight. Mars is a half a fist above the east horizon at 11:57 p.m. Now, quick, run off to bed.
I am guessing that some of you don’t like the line of reasoning from Thursday: 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.
Monday, November 14, 2011
The Ellensburg sky for the week of 11/19/11
Saturday: The Nature of Night event takes place from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. in Black Hall on the CWU campus. There will be planetarium shows, fun nighttime projects, telescopes, animals, cookies and much more. The event is free. Go to http://www.cwu.edu/~cesme/ for more information. Wait, don’t go to a computer. Go directly to Black Hall, G-12 on the map found at http://www.cwu.edu/newmap.html. The Center for Excellence in Science and Mathematics Education at CWU and various community sponsors work together to put on this event.
Sunday: You know winter is coming when Orion is visible in the evening sky. It is about a fist above the east-southeast horizon at 9 p.m.
Monday: When you think of space, the first image that comes to mind is a few large, massive bodies surrounded by a lot of empty space. After all, it is called “outer space”, not “outer stuff”. But that so-called empty space is filled powerful radiation and high-speed sub-microscopic particles. Much of this is dangerous to life. However, many planets, including Earth, have a shield against these called a magnetic field. Jupiter’s magnetic field is the strongest of all the planets. Find Jupiter four and a half fists above the southeast horizon at 8 p.m. For more information about magnetic fields, go to http://goo.gl/OYShj.
Tuesday: Saturn, Spica, and the waning crescent moon are huddled together in the early morning sky. The Moon is one and a half fists above the southeast horizon. Spica, the brightest star in the constellation Virgo, is a couple of finger widths to the upper left of the Moon. Saturn is less than a half a fist to the upper left of Spica.
Wednesday: Are you thankful that you live in a solar system with multiple planets? You should be. A giant planet like Jupiter cleans up planetary debris that could have collided with Earth and hindered the formation of complex life. Any inhabitants of the planets orbiting Upsilon Andromedae are thankful for this, as well. Upsilon Andromedae, a star in the constellation Andromeda, was the first Sun-like star discovered to have multiple planets orbiting it. So far, all of its planets are giant planets like Jupiter. But, the system is likely to also contain smaller planets. The dim star, but certainly not its planets, is barely visible straight overhead at 9 p.m.
Thursday: Some of us have a lot to be thankful for on Thanksgiving. But, probably not as much as Andromeda had to be thankful for. According to Greek mythology, the beautiful princess Andromeda was chained to a rock next to the ocean. Cetus the sea monster was about to devour her in order to punish her family. Her mother Queen Cassiopeia and her father King Cepheus didn’t know what to do. It seemed that all was lost. But, along came Andromeda’s boyfriend, the great warrior Perseus. Even though Perseus’ standing as the son of King Zeus and the slayer of Medusa was probably enough to win Andromeda under normal circumstances, Andromeda’s impending death-by-sea-monster was not a normal circumstance. So, Perseus drove his sword into the sea monster’s neck and killed it. This was the first time in recorded history that a set of parents actually welcomed an uninvited Thanksgiving visit from the boyfriend. Perseus is about five fists above the east-northeast horizon and Andromeda is about seven fists above the east horizon at 7 p.m.
Friday: Are you staying up late Thursday or getting up super early this morning to catch those Black Friday sales? Mars is about a half a fist above the east horizon at midnight. By 5 am, it is four fists above the southeast horizon. If you find Mars this morning, you’ll be doing a lot better than the poor Phobos-Grunt mission. It launched on November 9, only to have its final booster rocket fail. For more (extremely detailed) information, go to http://goo.gl/1Wfdu.
The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.
Sunday: You know winter is coming when Orion is visible in the evening sky. It is about a fist above the east-southeast horizon at 9 p.m.
Monday: When you think of space, the first image that comes to mind is a few large, massive bodies surrounded by a lot of empty space. After all, it is called “outer space”, not “outer stuff”. But that so-called empty space is filled powerful radiation and high-speed sub-microscopic particles. Much of this is dangerous to life. However, many planets, including Earth, have a shield against these called a magnetic field. Jupiter’s magnetic field is the strongest of all the planets. Find Jupiter four and a half fists above the southeast horizon at 8 p.m. For more information about magnetic fields, go to http://goo.gl/OYShj.
Tuesday: Saturn, Spica, and the waning crescent moon are huddled together in the early morning sky. The Moon is one and a half fists above the southeast horizon. Spica, the brightest star in the constellation Virgo, is a couple of finger widths to the upper left of the Moon. Saturn is less than a half a fist to the upper left of Spica.
Wednesday: Are you thankful that you live in a solar system with multiple planets? You should be. A giant planet like Jupiter cleans up planetary debris that could have collided with Earth and hindered the formation of complex life. Any inhabitants of the planets orbiting Upsilon Andromedae are thankful for this, as well. Upsilon Andromedae, a star in the constellation Andromeda, was the first Sun-like star discovered to have multiple planets orbiting it. So far, all of its planets are giant planets like Jupiter. But, the system is likely to also contain smaller planets. The dim star, but certainly not its planets, is barely visible straight overhead at 9 p.m.
Thursday: Some of us have a lot to be thankful for on Thanksgiving. But, probably not as much as Andromeda had to be thankful for. According to Greek mythology, the beautiful princess Andromeda was chained to a rock next to the ocean. Cetus the sea monster was about to devour her in order to punish her family. Her mother Queen Cassiopeia and her father King Cepheus didn’t know what to do. It seemed that all was lost. But, along came Andromeda’s boyfriend, the great warrior Perseus. Even though Perseus’ standing as the son of King Zeus and the slayer of Medusa was probably enough to win Andromeda under normal circumstances, Andromeda’s impending death-by-sea-monster was not a normal circumstance. So, Perseus drove his sword into the sea monster’s neck and killed it. This was the first time in recorded history that a set of parents actually welcomed an uninvited Thanksgiving visit from the boyfriend. Perseus is about five fists above the east-northeast horizon and Andromeda is about seven fists above the east horizon at 7 p.m.
Friday: Are you staying up late Thursday or getting up super early this morning to catch those Black Friday sales? Mars is about a half a fist above the east horizon at midnight. By 5 am, it is four fists above the southeast horizon. If you find Mars this morning, you’ll be doing a lot better than the poor Phobos-Grunt mission. It launched on November 9, only to have its final booster rocket fail. For more (extremely detailed) information, go to http://goo.gl/1Wfdu.
The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.
Friday, November 11, 2011
The Ellensburg sky for the week of 11/12/11
Saturday: Imagine Opie and Andy Taylor walking down the dirt path at night to that fishing hole in the sky. They’d probably be looking to catch Pisces, the two fish already conveniently tied together with two ropes. The ropes are connected at the star Alrescha, Arabic for “the cord”. Alrescha is four and a half fists held upright and at arm’s length above due south at 10 p.m. The fish are attached to lines of stars that branch out at one o’clock and three o’clock from Alrescha. By the way, “The Fishing Hole”, The Andy Griffith Show’s theme song, was rated the 20th best TV theme song of all time by ign.com. That’s too low of a rating in my opinion.
Sunday: Saturn is about a half a fist to the upper left of Spica for the next few mornings at 6 a.m. a fist above the east-southeast horizon.
Monday: Hit the road Mercury. And don’t you come back no more, no more. For a few weeks, Mercury has been hitting the road and moving away from the Sun in the sky. Today, Mercury is as far away from the Sun as it will get on the evening half of this cycle. This is known as its greatest eastern elongation. Yet, this distance does not translate into good viewing because Mercury will be very low in the sky. Mercury is less than a half a fist above the southwest horizon at 5:00 p.m., right below the much brighter Venus. Over the next few weeks, Mercury will move toward the Sun in the sky. After it passes in front of the Sun, it will appear in the morning sky by mid- December.
Tuesday: Jupiter is five fists above the southeast horizon at 9 p.m.
Wednesday: Chinese astronomers in 185 A.D. reported a “guest star” that mysteriously appeared in the sky for eight months. By the 1960s, only 1800 years later, astronomers had determined that this was the first recorded supernova. But they could not explain the excessive size of the surrounding nebula, the cloud of gas and dust expelled by the exploding star. Given the age of the supernova and the typical rate of expansion, this supernova remnant should have been smaller. But images from NASA’s Spitzer and Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer telescopes, astronomers discovered that the star exploded in a hollowed-out cavity meaning the material expelled by the star traveled much faster and farther than it would have in a denser region of the galaxy. Go to http://goo.gl/3jLZD for more information.
Thursday: The Leonid meteor shower peaks tonight and tomorrow morning. These meteors appear to come from a point in Leo the lion. This point is about one fist above the east-northeast horizon at midnight tonight. You can follow this point throughout the night and into the morning as it will remain about one fist above the bright star Regulus. Even if the weather cooperates, this will not be a great night to see a lot of meteors because the last quarter moon rising at midnight will illuminate the sky. The Leonid meteors are particles from the tail of Comet Tempel-Tuttle, a comet discovered by Ernst Tempel and Horace Parnell Tuttle around January 1, 1866. Go to http://goo.gl/OPP6D to see a picture of Comet Tempel-Tuttle. As your Mother might say, dress warm and sit in a comfortable chair for maximum enjoyment. Even if there are only a dozen meteors visible per hour, you’ll want to enjoy it.
Friday: Mars is about a fist to the upper left of the Moon at 6 a.m. in the southern sky.
Tomorrow, the Nature of Night event takes place from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. in Black Hall on the CWU campus. There will be planetarium shows, fun nighttime projects, telescopes, animals, cookies and much more. The event is free. Call 963-2929 or go to http://www.cwu.edu/~cesme/ for more information. The Center for Excellence in Science and Mathematics Education at CWU and various community sponsors work together to put on this event.
The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.
Sunday: Saturn is about a half a fist to the upper left of Spica for the next few mornings at 6 a.m. a fist above the east-southeast horizon.
Monday: Hit the road Mercury. And don’t you come back no more, no more. For a few weeks, Mercury has been hitting the road and moving away from the Sun in the sky. Today, Mercury is as far away from the Sun as it will get on the evening half of this cycle. This is known as its greatest eastern elongation. Yet, this distance does not translate into good viewing because Mercury will be very low in the sky. Mercury is less than a half a fist above the southwest horizon at 5:00 p.m., right below the much brighter Venus. Over the next few weeks, Mercury will move toward the Sun in the sky. After it passes in front of the Sun, it will appear in the morning sky by mid- December.
Tuesday: Jupiter is five fists above the southeast horizon at 9 p.m.
Wednesday: Chinese astronomers in 185 A.D. reported a “guest star” that mysteriously appeared in the sky for eight months. By the 1960s, only 1800 years later, astronomers had determined that this was the first recorded supernova. But they could not explain the excessive size of the surrounding nebula, the cloud of gas and dust expelled by the exploding star. Given the age of the supernova and the typical rate of expansion, this supernova remnant should have been smaller. But images from NASA’s Spitzer and Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer telescopes, astronomers discovered that the star exploded in a hollowed-out cavity meaning the material expelled by the star traveled much faster and farther than it would have in a denser region of the galaxy. Go to http://goo.gl/3jLZD for more information.
Thursday: The Leonid meteor shower peaks tonight and tomorrow morning. These meteors appear to come from a point in Leo the lion. This point is about one fist above the east-northeast horizon at midnight tonight. You can follow this point throughout the night and into the morning as it will remain about one fist above the bright star Regulus. Even if the weather cooperates, this will not be a great night to see a lot of meteors because the last quarter moon rising at midnight will illuminate the sky. The Leonid meteors are particles from the tail of Comet Tempel-Tuttle, a comet discovered by Ernst Tempel and Horace Parnell Tuttle around January 1, 1866. Go to http://goo.gl/OPP6D to see a picture of Comet Tempel-Tuttle. As your Mother might say, dress warm and sit in a comfortable chair for maximum enjoyment. Even if there are only a dozen meteors visible per hour, you’ll want to enjoy it.
Friday: Mars is about a fist to the upper left of the Moon at 6 a.m. in the southern sky.
Tomorrow, the Nature of Night event takes place from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. in Black Hall on the CWU campus. There will be planetarium shows, fun nighttime projects, telescopes, animals, cookies and much more. The event is free. Call 963-2929 or go to http://www.cwu.edu/~cesme/ for more information. The Center for Excellence in Science and Mathematics Education at CWU and various community sponsors work together to put on this event.
The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
The Ellensburg sky for the week of 11/5/11
What's up in the sky 11/5/11
Today: Don’t forget to “fall back” tonight. Before you fall back on to your bed, set your clock back one hour to the real time. Daylight savings ends early Sunday morning at 2 a.m. This means one more hour of sky watching at night 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 savings time was first utilized during World War I as a way 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 savings and some did not. But, it was not implemented with any uniformity as to when it should start and stop. The Uniform Time Act of 1966 codified the daylight savings rules.
Sunday: Did you look up Henrietta Swan Leavitt and Henry Draper based on last week’s Halloween costume suggestion? Henrietta Swan Leavitt was an 18th and 19th century astronomer who discovered the relationship between the luminosity and brightness fluctuations of a certain type of variable star. This led to a fundamental change in our understanding of the size of the universe. Henry Draper was a pioneer of astrophotography and was the first person to photograph the Orion Nebula. You can become about the one-millionth person to photograph the Orion Nebula it you look two fists held upright and at arm’s length above the east-southeast horizon at 11 p.m. This fuzzy patch in the middle of Orion’s scabbard is about a half a fist to the left of the brightest star in Orion, Rigel.
Monday: The North Taurid meteor shower peaks for the next few late nights and early mornings with the night of the 11th and 12th being the peak of the peak. This is not a prominent shower but it occasionally produces a couple of bright “fireballs”, larger rocks that take a few seconds to burn up in the atmosphere. Meteor showers are named after the constellation from which the meteors appear to originate. These meteors appear to come from a point in Taurus the bull. This point is nearly six fists above the southeast horizon at 11 p.m. You can follow this point throughout the night as it will remain midway between the bright star Aldebaran (pronounced Al-deb’-a-ran) and the open star cluster called the Pleiades. If you miss the peak this week, don’t worry. Taurid meteor showers result in a slight increase on meteor activity from mid-October to the beginning of December.
Tuesday: Jupiter is less than a fist to the lower left of the Moon due southeast at 9 p.m.
Wednesday: While Stonehenge is an ancient burial ground visited by religious people for thousands of years, MIThenge is an 825-foot long hallway on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology visited by the Sun’s rays twice a year. Every year in November and January, the setting Sun lines up with a narrow window at the end of the long hall and the light shines down to the opposite end. This season’s alignment is from November 10-13. For more information, visit http://goo.gl/NGbOj of visit MIT.
Thursday: Mars is five and a half fists above the south-southeast horizon at 6 a.m. The star Regulus is about a finger width to the lower right of Mars.
Friday: We wish you a Merry Martinmas. We wish you a Merry Martinmas. We wish you a Merry Martinmas. And a happy Friday. Martinmas is a holiday in many parts of the world commemorating Saint Martin of Tours. He was buried on November 11, 397. What does this have to astronomy? Not much except that the celebration on November 11 often doubles as a cross-quarter day celebration, a day that is halfway between an equinox and a solstice.
The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.
Today: Don’t forget to “fall back” tonight. Before you fall back on to your bed, set your clock back one hour to the real time. Daylight savings ends early Sunday morning at 2 a.m. This means one more hour of sky watching at night 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 savings time was first utilized during World War I as a way 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 savings and some did not. But, it was not implemented with any uniformity as to when it should start and stop. The Uniform Time Act of 1966 codified the daylight savings rules.
Sunday: Did you look up Henrietta Swan Leavitt and Henry Draper based on last week’s Halloween costume suggestion? Henrietta Swan Leavitt was an 18th and 19th century astronomer who discovered the relationship between the luminosity and brightness fluctuations of a certain type of variable star. This led to a fundamental change in our understanding of the size of the universe. Henry Draper was a pioneer of astrophotography and was the first person to photograph the Orion Nebula. You can become about the one-millionth person to photograph the Orion Nebula it you look two fists held upright and at arm’s length above the east-southeast horizon at 11 p.m. This fuzzy patch in the middle of Orion’s scabbard is about a half a fist to the left of the brightest star in Orion, Rigel.
Monday: The North Taurid meteor shower peaks for the next few late nights and early mornings with the night of the 11th and 12th being the peak of the peak. This is not a prominent shower but it occasionally produces a couple of bright “fireballs”, larger rocks that take a few seconds to burn up in the atmosphere. Meteor showers are named after the constellation from which the meteors appear to originate. These meteors appear to come from a point in Taurus the bull. This point is nearly six fists above the southeast horizon at 11 p.m. You can follow this point throughout the night as it will remain midway between the bright star Aldebaran (pronounced Al-deb’-a-ran) and the open star cluster called the Pleiades. If you miss the peak this week, don’t worry. Taurid meteor showers result in a slight increase on meteor activity from mid-October to the beginning of December.
Tuesday: Jupiter is less than a fist to the lower left of the Moon due southeast at 9 p.m.
Wednesday: While Stonehenge is an ancient burial ground visited by religious people for thousands of years, MIThenge is an 825-foot long hallway on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology visited by the Sun’s rays twice a year. Every year in November and January, the setting Sun lines up with a narrow window at the end of the long hall and the light shines down to the opposite end. This season’s alignment is from November 10-13. For more information, visit http://goo.gl/NGbOj of visit MIT.
Thursday: Mars is five and a half fists above the south-southeast horizon at 6 a.m. The star Regulus is about a finger width to the lower right of Mars.
Friday: We wish you a Merry Martinmas. We wish you a Merry Martinmas. We wish you a Merry Martinmas. And a happy Friday. Martinmas is a holiday in many parts of the world commemorating Saint Martin of Tours. He was buried on November 11, 397. What does this have to astronomy? Not much except that the celebration on November 11 often doubles as a cross-quarter day celebration, a day that is halfway between an equinox and a solstice.
The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.
Friday, October 28, 2011
The Ellensburg sky for the week of 10/29/11
Saturday: Dead October flowers lead to November meteor showers. While the Lyonid meteor shower is the big name among November meteor showers, the one or two bright fireballs per hour you can see during the typical Southern Taurids meteor shower may make it worth your while to say up. This shower reaches a maximum over the next few nights with a peak on November 6th. Meteor showers are named after the constellation from which the meteors appear to originate. These meteors appear to come from a point in Taurus the bull. This point is about four fists held upright and at arm’s length above the southeast horizon at 11 p.m. You can follow this point throughout the night, as it will remain one fist to the right of the V-shaped Hyades Cluster with its bright star Aldebaran (pronounced Al-deb’-a-ran). Meteors are tiny rocks that burn up in the atmosphere when the Earth runs into them. These rocks are broken off parts of Comet 2P/Encke.
Sunday: Halloween. The pumpkins. The candy. The children going door-to-door dressed up as their favorite astronomers Henrietta Swan Leavitt and Henry Draper. At least they should because Halloween is, in part, an astronomical holiday. Halloween is a “cross-quarter date”, a day approximately midway between an equinox and a solstice. Historically, the Celts of the British Isles used cross-quarter dates as the beginnings of seasons. For the Celts, winter began with Halloween. So when all those little Leavitts and Drapers come to your door tomorrow night, honor the Celts and give them a wintry treat. If they ask you for a trick, point out Venus, a half a fist above the southwest horizon.
Monday: Are you thinking of dressing up like a student and visiting a scary museum? Then the Museum of Culture and Environment at Central Washington University has an event for you, an interdisciplinary symposium called "Fabricating the Fantastic: The Pleasures and Perils of Exaggeration," at 4:30 p.m. Monday in Dean Hall. The symposium is inspired by the museum's exhibit "Storytelling Through the Mail: Tall Tale Postcards." CWU professors will talk about how exaggeration plays a role in certain fields, including astronomy. Go to http://goo.gl/C8Ynf for more information. If you doubt that museums can be scary, check out the size of the bugs on some of the postcards. Buzzzzzz, indeed!
Tuesday: Happy Celtic New Year! Many historians think that this day, 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.
Wednesday: Jupiter is two and a half fists above the east horizon at 8 p.m.
Thursday: Lacerta, the faint lizard constellation, is straight overhead at 9 p.m. It was named by the Polish astronomer Johannes Hevelius in 1687 to fill the space between the much brighter and well-defined constellations Pegasus, Andromeda, Cassiopeia, Cepheus, and Cygnus going clockwise from the constellation just south of Lacerta. Chinese know this group of stars as a flying serpent or dragon.
Friday: Mars is five and a half fists above the southeast horizon at 7 a.m. Regulus, the brightest star in the constellation Leo is a half a fist to the lower left.
The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.
Sunday: Halloween. The pumpkins. The candy. The children going door-to-door dressed up as their favorite astronomers Henrietta Swan Leavitt and Henry Draper. At least they should because Halloween is, in part, an astronomical holiday. Halloween is a “cross-quarter date”, a day approximately midway between an equinox and a solstice. Historically, the Celts of the British Isles used cross-quarter dates as the beginnings of seasons. For the Celts, winter began with Halloween. So when all those little Leavitts and Drapers come to your door tomorrow night, honor the Celts and give them a wintry treat. If they ask you for a trick, point out Venus, a half a fist above the southwest horizon.
Monday: Are you thinking of dressing up like a student and visiting a scary museum? Then the Museum of Culture and Environment at Central Washington University has an event for you, an interdisciplinary symposium called "Fabricating the Fantastic: The Pleasures and Perils of Exaggeration," at 4:30 p.m. Monday in Dean Hall. The symposium is inspired by the museum's exhibit "Storytelling Through the Mail: Tall Tale Postcards." CWU professors will talk about how exaggeration plays a role in certain fields, including astronomy. Go to http://goo.gl/C8Ynf for more information. If you doubt that museums can be scary, check out the size of the bugs on some of the postcards. Buzzzzzz, indeed!
Tuesday: Happy Celtic New Year! Many historians think that this day, 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.
Wednesday: Jupiter is two and a half fists above the east horizon at 8 p.m.
Thursday: Lacerta, the faint lizard constellation, is straight overhead at 9 p.m. It was named by the Polish astronomer Johannes Hevelius in 1687 to fill the space between the much brighter and well-defined constellations Pegasus, Andromeda, Cassiopeia, Cepheus, and Cygnus going clockwise from the constellation just south of Lacerta. Chinese know this group of stars as a flying serpent or dragon.
Friday: Mars is five and a half fists above the southeast horizon at 7 a.m. Regulus, the brightest star in the constellation Leo is a half a fist to the lower left.
The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
The Ellensburg sky for the week of 10/22/11
Saturday: “It’s a wonderful day in the neighborhood.” Constellations can be considered neighborhoods in the nighttime sky. But, the stars in those constellations are not necessarily neighbors in real life. For example, the bright stars in the constellation Cassiopeia range from 19 to over 10,000 light years away from Earth. One constellation that consists of real neighbors is Ursa Major. Or, more specifically, the Big Dipper. Five stars in the Big Dipper are all moving in the same direction in space, are about the same age and are all about 80 light years from Earth. “Please won’t you be my neighbor?” Skat, the third brightest star in the constellation Aquarius is a neighbor to these five Big Dipper stars, all of which are about 30 light years from each other. They are thought to have originated in the same nebula about 500 million years ago. Just like human children do, these child stars are slowly moving away from home. Skat is about three fists held upright and at arm’s length above due south at 10 p.m. The much brighter Fomalhaut is a fist and a half below Skat. And, it’s not fun being below Skat.
Sunday: Would you like to contribute to science? Participate in the Great World Wide Star Count this week. Go to http://www.windows2universe.org/citizen_science/starcount/ to download instructions. Basically, you’ll count the stars you can see in Cygnus the Swan, a constellation that is nearly straight overhead at 8 p.m.
Monday: The Stargate movies and TV shows have access to a portal to other planets. Harry Potter has access to a portal to the Chamber of Secrets. You have access to a Portal to the Universe. This portal, available not in Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom but on the web at http://www.portaltotheuniverse.org/, is a repository of up-to-date astronomy news, blogs, and podcasts. A recent story highlights NASA’s Spitzer Space telescope’s discovery of a comet “storm” in a nearby star system that resembles what astronomers think occurred in our own solar system nearly four billion years ago. By studying the evidence of ice, organic material, and rocks near the one billion year old star Eta Corvi, astronomers may learn more about how the Earth was affected by a similar environment early in its formation.
Tuesday: Mars is five and a half fists above the southeast horizon at 6:30 a.m. The slightly dimmer star Regulus is a fist to the lower left of Mars.
Wednesday: Tonight’s Moon is new. Don’t bother looking for it. The new moon is the phase where the Moon is directly between the Earth and the Sun. Hence the side of the Moon facing Earth is not receiving any sunlight and cannot be seen. But it can be felt, especially by the oceans. The Moon is at perigee tonight meaning the Moon is the closest it will be this month. When the Moon is at perigee during the new or full stage, the high tides are especially high because the Sun, Earth and Moon are all lined up.
Thursday: This weekend is Halloween so make sure you load up on peanut clusters, almond clusters, and open star clusters. 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 p.m. Containing over 300 stars; the Hyades cluster is about 150 light years away and 625 million years old. The Pleiades Cluster, a little more than three fists above due east, is larger at over 1000 stars and younger. Compared to our 5 billion year old Sun, the 100 million year age of the Pleiades is infant-like.
Friday: Jupiter is in opposition tonight. No, that doesn’t mean it will disagree with everything you say. (Yes it does. No it doesn’t. Yes it does. No it doesn’t) Opposition means that a planet is on the opposite side of the Earth as the Sun. An object is in opposition when it is due south 12 hours after the Sun. When an object is in opposition, it is at its highest point in the sky during the darkest time of the night. A planet in opposition shines brighter and appears larger in a telescope than any other night of its orbital cycle. Jupiter is five and a half fists above due south at 1 a.m. daylight savings time which is midnight standard time. If you’d rather not stay up so late, you can find it three fists above the east-southeast horizon at 9 p.m.
The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.
Sunday: Would you like to contribute to science? Participate in the Great World Wide Star Count this week. Go to http://www.windows2universe.org/citizen_science/starcount/ to download instructions. Basically, you’ll count the stars you can see in Cygnus the Swan, a constellation that is nearly straight overhead at 8 p.m.
Monday: The Stargate movies and TV shows have access to a portal to other planets. Harry Potter has access to a portal to the Chamber of Secrets. You have access to a Portal to the Universe. This portal, available not in Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom but on the web at http://www.portaltotheuniverse.org/, is a repository of up-to-date astronomy news, blogs, and podcasts. A recent story highlights NASA’s Spitzer Space telescope’s discovery of a comet “storm” in a nearby star system that resembles what astronomers think occurred in our own solar system nearly four billion years ago. By studying the evidence of ice, organic material, and rocks near the one billion year old star Eta Corvi, astronomers may learn more about how the Earth was affected by a similar environment early in its formation.
Tuesday: Mars is five and a half fists above the southeast horizon at 6:30 a.m. The slightly dimmer star Regulus is a fist to the lower left of Mars.
Wednesday: Tonight’s Moon is new. Don’t bother looking for it. The new moon is the phase where the Moon is directly between the Earth and the Sun. Hence the side of the Moon facing Earth is not receiving any sunlight and cannot be seen. But it can be felt, especially by the oceans. The Moon is at perigee tonight meaning the Moon is the closest it will be this month. When the Moon is at perigee during the new or full stage, the high tides are especially high because the Sun, Earth and Moon are all lined up.
Thursday: This weekend is Halloween so make sure you load up on peanut clusters, almond clusters, and open star clusters. 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 p.m. Containing over 300 stars; the Hyades cluster is about 150 light years away and 625 million years old. The Pleiades Cluster, a little more than three fists above due east, is larger at over 1000 stars and younger. Compared to our 5 billion year old Sun, the 100 million year age of the Pleiades is infant-like.
Friday: Jupiter is in opposition tonight. No, that doesn’t mean it will disagree with everything you say. (Yes it does. No it doesn’t. Yes it does. No it doesn’t) Opposition means that a planet is on the opposite side of the Earth as the Sun. An object is in opposition when it is due south 12 hours after the Sun. When an object is in opposition, it is at its highest point in the sky during the darkest time of the night. A planet in opposition shines brighter and appears larger in a telescope than any other night of its orbital cycle. Jupiter is five and a half fists above due south at 1 a.m. daylight savings time which is midnight standard time. If you’d rather not stay up so late, you can find it three fists above the east-southeast horizon at 9 p.m.
The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
The Ellensburg sky for the week of 10/15/11
Saturday: The Ellensburg weather is cooling down. But the space weather is heating up. More specifically, the Sun is moving toward a sunspot maximum which means an increase in solar storms. Keep your eye on the space weather by going to http://www.spaceweather.com.
Sunday: 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 held upright and at arm’s length above due south at 8:30 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. The Daily Record (shop Ellensburg) would never let anything like that get into their newspaper. Their editing (shop Ellensburg) staff is too good. Nothing (pohs grubsnellE) evades their gaze.
Monday: Jupiter is three fists above the east-southeast horizon at 10 p.m.
Tuesday: What time is tea time? Certainly not during an autumn evening. The constellation Sagittarius the archer, with its signature teapot shape, is sinking into the south-southwest horizon by 8 p.m. The handle is on top and the spout is touching the horizon ready to pour that last cup of tea.
Wednesday: Tonight’s last quarter Moon is in the constellation Cancer the Crab.
Thursday: The Orionid meteor shower consists of the Earth colliding with pieces of the remains of Halley's Comet's tail. This shower peaks for the next two nights and early mornings. This is not a meteor shower that results in a meteor storm. There will be about 15-20 meteors per hour, many more meteors than are visible on a typical night. However, the chance of seeing meteors this year is less than usual because the waning crescent Moon will be out during most of the prime viewing hours. 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 three fists above the southeast horizon at 1 a.m. tonight. You can follow this point throughout the night as it will remain one fist above the prominent reddish star Betelgeuse (pronounced Bet'-el-jews). The Orionid meteors are fast - up to 40 miles per second. If you fall asleep tonight, you can catch the tail end of the shower every night until early November.
Friday: Mars is less that a fist to the upper left of the Moon at 6 a.m.
The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.
Sunday: 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 held upright and at arm’s length above due south at 8:30 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. The Daily Record (shop Ellensburg) would never let anything like that get into their newspaper. Their editing (shop Ellensburg) staff is too good. Nothing (pohs grubsnellE) evades their gaze.
Monday: Jupiter is three fists above the east-southeast horizon at 10 p.m.
Tuesday: What time is tea time? Certainly not during an autumn evening. The constellation Sagittarius the archer, with its signature teapot shape, is sinking into the south-southwest horizon by 8 p.m. The handle is on top and the spout is touching the horizon ready to pour that last cup of tea.
Wednesday: Tonight’s last quarter Moon is in the constellation Cancer the Crab.
Thursday: The Orionid meteor shower consists of the Earth colliding with pieces of the remains of Halley's Comet's tail. This shower peaks for the next two nights and early mornings. This is not a meteor shower that results in a meteor storm. There will be about 15-20 meteors per hour, many more meteors than are visible on a typical night. However, the chance of seeing meteors this year is less than usual because the waning crescent Moon will be out during most of the prime viewing hours. 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 three fists above the southeast horizon at 1 a.m. tonight. You can follow this point throughout the night as it will remain one fist above the prominent reddish star Betelgeuse (pronounced Bet'-el-jews). The Orionid meteors are fast - up to 40 miles per second. If you fall asleep tonight, you can catch the tail end of the shower every night until early November.
Friday: Mars is less that a fist to the upper left of the Moon at 6 a.m.
The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
The Ellensburg sky for the week of 10/8/11
Saturday: The Draconid meteor shower peaks tonight. The meteors appear to come from a point in the head of Draco, the dragon constellation. This point is about five fists held upright and at arm’s above the northwest horizon at 10 p.m. tonight. This point remains near the trapezoid-shaped head of Draco throughout the night. Typically, this is a minor shower. However, Draconid meteors are slow moving which means you will have a easy time differentiating true Draconid meteors, from Comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner, from stray grains of dust that happen to enter the Earth’s atmosphere near where we see the constellation Draco. As your Mother might say, dress warm and sit in a comfortable chair for maximum enjoyment.
Sunday: Do the weather people make you mad? Predict the weather yourself. This week, the planet Mars can help. Mars doesn’t actually make the forecast. But, it will help you find an object in the sky that allows you to predict storms. Mars is now close to the Beehive star cluster in the late night/early morning sky. The Beehive cluster is a hazy patch visible to the naked eye under dark, clear skies. If the sky seems clear but the Beehive cluster is not visible, that indicates that faint high-level clouds are moving in, bringing storm clouds in their wake. Mars is about four and a half fists above the southeast horizon at 6 a.m. The Beehive is about a half fist to the upper right of Mars. If you can’t see it, get an umbrella.
Monday: Halley's comet returns this month! In the form of little pieces of its tail, that is. The Orionid meteor shower consists of the earth colliding with pieces of the remains of Halley's Comet's tail. This shower peaks on the morning of October 21 but produces meteors from now until early November. 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 three fists held upright and at arm’s length above the southeast horizon at 1 a.m. tonight. 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. As you Mother might say, dress warm and sit in a comfortable chair for maximum enjoyment.
Tuesday: The harvest is over. Animals that have filled themselves up with the excess bounty are wondering around through forests that have lost their leaves. It is a hunter’s paradise. The only thing missing is nighttime lighting. Enter the hunter’s moon. Tonight’s full moon, called the hunter’s moon, is in the constellation Aries the ram.
Wednesday: Since Halloween is coming up, the stores are filled with bags of candy clusters. Instead, 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 important information about the scale of the universe. Aldebaran, nearly two fists above due east horizon at 11 p.m., is a foreground star and not a part of the Hyades cluster.
Thursday: Jupiter is a half a fist to the left of the Moon at 6 a.m.
Friday: Arcturus is one fist above the west-northwest horizon at 8 p.m.
The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.
Sunday: Do the weather people make you mad? Predict the weather yourself. This week, the planet Mars can help. Mars doesn’t actually make the forecast. But, it will help you find an object in the sky that allows you to predict storms. Mars is now close to the Beehive star cluster in the late night/early morning sky. The Beehive cluster is a hazy patch visible to the naked eye under dark, clear skies. If the sky seems clear but the Beehive cluster is not visible, that indicates that faint high-level clouds are moving in, bringing storm clouds in their wake. Mars is about four and a half fists above the southeast horizon at 6 a.m. The Beehive is about a half fist to the upper right of Mars. If you can’t see it, get an umbrella.
Monday: Halley's comet returns this month! In the form of little pieces of its tail, that is. The Orionid meteor shower consists of the earth colliding with pieces of the remains of Halley's Comet's tail. This shower peaks on the morning of October 21 but produces meteors from now until early November. 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 three fists held upright and at arm’s length above the southeast horizon at 1 a.m. tonight. 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. As you Mother might say, dress warm and sit in a comfortable chair for maximum enjoyment.
Tuesday: The harvest is over. Animals that have filled themselves up with the excess bounty are wondering around through forests that have lost their leaves. It is a hunter’s paradise. The only thing missing is nighttime lighting. Enter the hunter’s moon. Tonight’s full moon, called the hunter’s moon, is in the constellation Aries the ram.
Wednesday: Since Halloween is coming up, the stores are filled with bags of candy clusters. Instead, 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 important information about the scale of the universe. Aldebaran, nearly two fists above due east horizon at 11 p.m., is a foreground star and not a part of the Hyades cluster.
Thursday: Jupiter is a half a fist to the left of the Moon at 6 a.m.
Friday: Arcturus is one fist above the west-northwest horizon at 8 p.m.
The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
The Ellensburg sky for the week of 10/1/11
Saturday: Mnemonics are helpful for remembering astronomy facts. (Similarly, “Johnny Mnemonic”, the 1995 cyberpunk film, was helpful in getting Keanu Reeves’ career going.) After all, school children all around the country are learning the order of the planets by remembering, “My very excellent mother just served us nine….” Oops, I guess that one needs updating. Well, here’s one that will not need updating for nearly 100,000 years: the order of the stars in the Big Dipper. Because the nighttime stars are so far away from us, their actual motion through the sky, called their “proper motion” is not noticeable over even thousands of years. That is why the constellations have remained the same since ancient times. But two stars in the Big Dipper have a proper motion large enough such than in 100,000 years, the stars will no longer make a dipper shape. Until then, you can remember the names of the seven dipper stars in order from handle to cup by remembering this helpful advice for teens: “AM, ask mom. PM, dad”. The stars are Alkaid, Mizar, Alioth, Megrez, Phad, Merek, and Duhbe. Morning, morning, evening, death is one fist held upright and at arm’s length above the north horizon at 11 p.m.
Sunday: The increasing sunspot activity has led to prominent auroras in many northern states over the past week. The main cause of these auroras is electrically charged particles coming from the region of a sunspot that is over 10 Earth-diameter in length. (I guess it is more of a “sunstreak” than a sunspot.) For more information about sunspots, auroras and other space weather phenomenon, go to http://spaceweather.com/.
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Monday: Jupiter is two fists above the east horizon at 10 p.m.
Tuesday: What do you like to look at in the night sky? Maria Von Trapp made her choice very clear in an earlier version of The Sound of Astronomy: “Light shining off of the moon and the rings, these are a few of my favorite things.” October 2010 to August 2012 is the Year of the Solar System. NASA is celebrating many solar system missions these 22 months, a Martian year. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is taking high resolution pictures of the Moon and Cassini has drastically updated what we know about Saturn. Saturn is still obscured by the glare of the Sun but the Moon is prominent in the night sky and waiting to be observed by you at an upcoming CWU Astronomy Club event. For more information about moons, rings, and the Year of the Solar System, go to http://goo.gl/jJOPF. For more information about the CWU event, read ahead.
Wednesday: At 6 a.m., Mars is four fists above the east-south east horizon, right in the middle of the constellation Cancer the Crab.
Thursday: Fomalhaut, the southernmost of the bright stars, is a little more than a fist above the south horizon at 10:30. It is in the constellation Piscis Austrinus or the southern fish.
Friday: Tomorrow is International Observe the Moon Night. But why wait? The CWU Astronomy club is having a Moon watching party tonight from 8:00 to 10:00 p.m. The event starts in Lind Hall room 215 with a brief presentation about the Moon followed by observing with the CWU observatory and other telescopes. Lind Hall is on the northwest corner of East University Way and Chestnut Street. Parking is free in all CWU lots after 4:30 p.m. For more information, go to http://goo.gl/jh3Zu.
The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.
Sunday: The increasing sunspot activity has led to prominent auroras in many northern states over the past week. The main cause of these auroras is electrically charged particles coming from the region of a sunspot that is over 10 Earth-diameter in length. (I guess it is more of a “sunstreak” than a sunspot.) For more information about sunspots, auroras and other space weather phenomenon, go to http://spaceweather.com/.
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Monday: Jupiter is two fists above the east horizon at 10 p.m.
Tuesday: What do you like to look at in the night sky? Maria Von Trapp made her choice very clear in an earlier version of The Sound of Astronomy: “Light shining off of the moon and the rings, these are a few of my favorite things.” October 2010 to August 2012 is the Year of the Solar System. NASA is celebrating many solar system missions these 22 months, a Martian year. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is taking high resolution pictures of the Moon and Cassini has drastically updated what we know about Saturn. Saturn is still obscured by the glare of the Sun but the Moon is prominent in the night sky and waiting to be observed by you at an upcoming CWU Astronomy Club event. For more information about moons, rings, and the Year of the Solar System, go to http://goo.gl/jJOPF. For more information about the CWU event, read ahead.
Wednesday: At 6 a.m., Mars is four fists above the east-south east horizon, right in the middle of the constellation Cancer the Crab.
Thursday: Fomalhaut, the southernmost of the bright stars, is a little more than a fist above the south horizon at 10:30. It is in the constellation Piscis Austrinus or the southern fish.
Friday: Tomorrow is International Observe the Moon Night. But why wait? The CWU Astronomy club is having a Moon watching party tonight from 8:00 to 10:00 p.m. The event starts in Lind Hall room 215 with a brief presentation about the Moon followed by observing with the CWU observatory and other telescopes. Lind Hall is on the northwest corner of East University Way and Chestnut Street. Parking is free in all CWU lots after 4:30 p.m. For more information, go to http://goo.gl/jh3Zu.
The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.
Thursday, September 22, 2011
The Ellensburg sky for the week of 9/24/11
Saturday: “You know Aries and Cancer and Draco and Libra. Leo and Pisces and Virgo and Hydra. But, do you recall, the pointiest asterism of all? Triangulum, the three sided asterism, had a very pointy edge….” Sorry. Some stores have started putting up their Christmas decorations and that has put me in the mood to modify some Christmas songs. Anyway, Triangulum is a small constellation between the more prominent Andromeda and Aries. Its main feature is a skinny triangle oriented parallel to and nearly four fists held upright and at arm’s length above the east horizon at 10 p.m.
Sunday: Regulus is a fist to the upper left of the Moon at 6 a.m.
Monday: Did you time the exact length of the day and night last Wednesday on the first day of autumn? They were not equal in duration. Many people think that the day and night are the same duration on the autumnal equinox. The day is a little longer than the night for two reasons. First, the Sun is an extended object so even when the middle part has set, the upper half is still above the horizon lighting the sky. The second, and more influential reason, is that the atmosphere acts like a lens, bending light from the Sun above the horizon when the Sun is really still below the horizon. Day and night are closest in duration today.
Tuesday: This is the best week of the year to see Uranus, the seventh planet from the Sun. But you’ll need binoculars to find it. First, find Deneb Kaitos, a star one fist above the southwest horizon at 10 p.m. This star, whose name means “whale’s tail”, is about the same brightness as the Big Dipper stars. Another fist up is a reddish star called Iota Ceti. Put this star in the bottom of your binoculars’ field of view. At the top of the field of view should be a skinny, upright rectangle. Move the upper left corner of this rectangle to the lower right hand portion of your binoculars’ field of view. Uranus is a bluish dot near the middle of the field of view.
Wednesday: The west-southwest horizon is crowded just after sunset. Spica is about a fist to the upper right of the Moon at 7 p.m. The much brighter Venus is another fist to the right of Spica. Finally, Saturn is about a finger width above Venus.
Thursday: The cloudy season is coming to Ellensburg. Don’t feel bad. According to three astronomers, it is always cloudy season on HD 85512b, a newly discovered planet orbiting the star called… wait for it… wait for it… called HD 85512. These astronomers developed a method to estimate the cloud cover on planets orbiting distant stars. They think HD 85512b may be cloudy enough to have liquid water on its surface even though it is fairly close to its host star. While the presence of surface water does not guarantee finding life, it is a critical component. For more information, go to http://goo.gl/bGxMD.
Friday: Jupiter is two fists above the east horizon at 10 p.m.
The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.
Sunday: Regulus is a fist to the upper left of the Moon at 6 a.m.
Monday: Did you time the exact length of the day and night last Wednesday on the first day of autumn? They were not equal in duration. Many people think that the day and night are the same duration on the autumnal equinox. The day is a little longer than the night for two reasons. First, the Sun is an extended object so even when the middle part has set, the upper half is still above the horizon lighting the sky. The second, and more influential reason, is that the atmosphere acts like a lens, bending light from the Sun above the horizon when the Sun is really still below the horizon. Day and night are closest in duration today.
Tuesday: This is the best week of the year to see Uranus, the seventh planet from the Sun. But you’ll need binoculars to find it. First, find Deneb Kaitos, a star one fist above the southwest horizon at 10 p.m. This star, whose name means “whale’s tail”, is about the same brightness as the Big Dipper stars. Another fist up is a reddish star called Iota Ceti. Put this star in the bottom of your binoculars’ field of view. At the top of the field of view should be a skinny, upright rectangle. Move the upper left corner of this rectangle to the lower right hand portion of your binoculars’ field of view. Uranus is a bluish dot near the middle of the field of view.
Wednesday: The west-southwest horizon is crowded just after sunset. Spica is about a fist to the upper right of the Moon at 7 p.m. The much brighter Venus is another fist to the right of Spica. Finally, Saturn is about a finger width above Venus.
Thursday: The cloudy season is coming to Ellensburg. Don’t feel bad. According to three astronomers, it is always cloudy season on HD 85512b, a newly discovered planet orbiting the star called… wait for it… wait for it… called HD 85512. These astronomers developed a method to estimate the cloud cover on planets orbiting distant stars. They think HD 85512b may be cloudy enough to have liquid water on its surface even though it is fairly close to its host star. While the presence of surface water does not guarantee finding life, it is a critical component. For more information, go to http://goo.gl/bGxMD.
Friday: Jupiter is two fists above the east horizon at 10 p.m.
The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
The Ellensburg sky for the week of 9/17/11
Saturday: Last Friday, I gave you a very brief overview of how to use the Big Dipper as a clock. But, my explanation was helpful only for a late evening in the autumn or spring. Some of you go out other times of the year and need a way to tell time then. First, find the two stars at the far end of the Big Dipper cup, the stars that do not touch the handle. Draw an imaginary line segment starting at the North Star and passing through the two Big Dipper cup stars. Now, draw a big circle around the North Star. Your circle is a 24-hour clock. Number the circle from 0 hours at the top, counterclockwise to 12 hours at the bottom of the circle, and back up to 24 hours at the top. (O hours and 24 hours are the same on this clock because the day is 24 hours long.) The hour number on the big circle closest to where your imaginary line intersects this circle is called your raw time. Due to the location of the Big Dipper compared to the rest of the stars, the time nearest the intersection (the raw time) is correct for March 6. For any other night, subtract two times the number of months the current date is after March 6 from the raw time. For example, let’s say the imaginary line between the North Star and the Dipper stars is pointed to the right. That means the raw time is 18 hours or 6 p.m. If you made this observation on October 6, which is seven months after March 6, you would subtract two times seven or 14 hours from the raw time. Thus, the time for November 6 is 18 hours minus 14 hours or 4 hours. In other words, 4 a.m. Don’t forget to convert for daylight savings time if needed. For a more complete set of instructions, go to http://goo.gl/02HmA. There is a simple “star clock” template and instructions at http://goo.gl/SFKrE. Use this paper star clock whenever you watch is broken.
Sunday: Let me tell you the story of the ghostly white figure that rises early in the morning around Halloween. It appears to be a huge dim glow of white light that rises up from the east in the pre-dawn sky. No, I’m not writing about the ROTC student who has her first early morning physical training. I’m describing an effect called the zodiacal light. This light comes from sunlight reflecting off dust grains in our solar system. The effect is the most visible when the band of constellations called the zodiac makes a steep angle with the horizon. You need a clear sky with no haze or light pollution to see the zodiacal light that will be visible for the next week or so. At its brightest, the zodiacal light rivals the light of the central Milky Way.
Monday: Jupiter is a fist held upright and at arm’s length above the east horizon at 10 p.m.
Tuesday: This morning’s last quarter Moon is in the constellation Taurus the bull. This morning’s other Moon is…. Wait a minute. The Earth has only one Moon. True. And it has always had only one Moon. Not necessarily true. According to the best existing model, about four billion years ago, a Mars-sized object collided with the young Earth. The resulting debris coalesced to form the Moon. However, this model left a mystery: why is the Moon so asymmetric? Hardened-lava lowlands dominate the near side while the far side is dominated by mountainous highlands. According to a recent revision of the prevailing model, the early collision formed a large Moon and a small Moon. Over the years, the small Moon caught up to and collided with the large Moon. The highlands are the material from the collided small Moon. For more information about this theory, go to http://goo.gl/6JlcA.
Wednesday: The bright star Vega is nearly straight overhead at 8 p.m.
Thursday: Mars is four fists above the east horizon and one fist to the lower left of the Moon at 6 a.m.
Friday: At precisely 1:06 a.m., 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 6:50 a.m. and sets at 6:58 p.m. Day and night are closest to equal duration next Monday.
The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.
Sunday: Let me tell you the story of the ghostly white figure that rises early in the morning around Halloween. It appears to be a huge dim glow of white light that rises up from the east in the pre-dawn sky. No, I’m not writing about the ROTC student who has her first early morning physical training. I’m describing an effect called the zodiacal light. This light comes from sunlight reflecting off dust grains in our solar system. The effect is the most visible when the band of constellations called the zodiac makes a steep angle with the horizon. You need a clear sky with no haze or light pollution to see the zodiacal light that will be visible for the next week or so. At its brightest, the zodiacal light rivals the light of the central Milky Way.
Monday: Jupiter is a fist held upright and at arm’s length above the east horizon at 10 p.m.
Tuesday: This morning’s last quarter Moon is in the constellation Taurus the bull. This morning’s other Moon is…. Wait a minute. The Earth has only one Moon. True. And it has always had only one Moon. Not necessarily true. According to the best existing model, about four billion years ago, a Mars-sized object collided with the young Earth. The resulting debris coalesced to form the Moon. However, this model left a mystery: why is the Moon so asymmetric? Hardened-lava lowlands dominate the near side while the far side is dominated by mountainous highlands. According to a recent revision of the prevailing model, the early collision formed a large Moon and a small Moon. Over the years, the small Moon caught up to and collided with the large Moon. The highlands are the material from the collided small Moon. For more information about this theory, go to http://goo.gl/6JlcA.
Wednesday: The bright star Vega is nearly straight overhead at 8 p.m.
Thursday: Mars is four fists above the east horizon and one fist to the lower left of the Moon at 6 a.m.
Friday: At precisely 1:06 a.m., 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 6:50 a.m. and sets at 6:58 p.m. Day and night are closest to equal duration next Monday.
The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
The Ellensburg sky for the week of 9/10/11
Saturday: The violent death of lots of aliens is called a video game. The violent death of a supergiant star is called a supernova. On August 24, a star in the Pinwheel Galaxy, a mere 21 million light years away, went supernova. This is the closest and brightest supernova in the past 25 years. You’ll need binoculars or a small telescope to see it. First find the Big Dipper handle, about two fists held upright and at arm’s length, above the north-northwest horizon at 11 p.m. The galaxy is about a half a fist above the end star. There is a very helpful map at the bottom of this page http://goo.gl/Mw2LO.
Sunday: Shine on, shine on harvest moon, up in the sky. It’s just like a full moon in January, February, June and July. The only difference is that near the Autumnal Equinox (also known as the first day of fall), the full moon rises near sunset resulting in a full night of light for the harvest. The harvest moon looks like a dull orange color while it is near the horizon because of the dust kicked up from the harvest. The dust scatters the white light reflecting off of the Moon resulting in slightly more of the red and orange components of the white light reaching your eyes. Although the Moon has a dull yellow color whenever it is near the horizon owing to light scattering off of dust and atmospheric particles, the effect is more noticeable for the harvest Moon. Tonight’s full moon, which isn’t completely full until tomorrow at 1:30 a.m., is in the constellation Aquarius the water bearer.
Monday: Science is Central! This week, faculty, staff, and students in the College of the Sciences at CWU will kick off the start of the academic year by hosting a series of evening science lectures and demonstrations geared for all ages. All events are taking place on the CWU Ellensburg campus and all are free. The series kicks off tonight when Ton Cottrell shares photos, stories and thoughts from Northern Alaska from 7:00 – 8:00 pm in Science room 101 followed by a guided tour of the night sky with several telescopes. Check http://goo.gl/5Hi5y for an event schedule.
Tuesday: In most parts of the country, a mixture of tasty carbon-based material and healthy minerals is called a casserole. In Minnesota, it is called a hot dish. (Uffdah, you betcha!) In space, it is called a supergiant. Antares, a supergiant in the constellation Scorpius, is forging lighter elements into carbon, oxygen, silicon, and iron in its core. It is on the main course table one fist above the southwest horizon at 7:30. Make sure it cools off before you take a bite.
Wednesday: “One world, group hug, love everyone” philosophy: political borders are human-made and can’t be seen from space. Real world, pragmatic discovery: some human-made political borders CAN be seen from space. Since 2003, India has illuminated its border with Pakistan to prevent illegal crossings. In August, astronaut Ron Garan took a picture of the boarder from the International Space Station. For more information, including the photo, go to http://goo.gl/mY8xG.
Thursday: Jupiter is about a half a fist below the Moon at 10 p.m.
Friday: You can use the position of the Big Dipper as a clock. During the late evening in the autumn, the Big Dipper cup is facing up to hold water. During the late evening in the spring, the Big Dipper cup is facing down to produce those spring showers. The water-holding Big Dipper is one fist above the north horizon at 11 p.m.
The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.
Sunday: Shine on, shine on harvest moon, up in the sky. It’s just like a full moon in January, February, June and July. The only difference is that near the Autumnal Equinox (also known as the first day of fall), the full moon rises near sunset resulting in a full night of light for the harvest. The harvest moon looks like a dull orange color while it is near the horizon because of the dust kicked up from the harvest. The dust scatters the white light reflecting off of the Moon resulting in slightly more of the red and orange components of the white light reaching your eyes. Although the Moon has a dull yellow color whenever it is near the horizon owing to light scattering off of dust and atmospheric particles, the effect is more noticeable for the harvest Moon. Tonight’s full moon, which isn’t completely full until tomorrow at 1:30 a.m., is in the constellation Aquarius the water bearer.
Monday: Science is Central! This week, faculty, staff, and students in the College of the Sciences at CWU will kick off the start of the academic year by hosting a series of evening science lectures and demonstrations geared for all ages. All events are taking place on the CWU Ellensburg campus and all are free. The series kicks off tonight when Ton Cottrell shares photos, stories and thoughts from Northern Alaska from 7:00 – 8:00 pm in Science room 101 followed by a guided tour of the night sky with several telescopes. Check http://goo.gl/5Hi5y for an event schedule.
Tuesday: In most parts of the country, a mixture of tasty carbon-based material and healthy minerals is called a casserole. In Minnesota, it is called a hot dish. (Uffdah, you betcha!) In space, it is called a supergiant. Antares, a supergiant in the constellation Scorpius, is forging lighter elements into carbon, oxygen, silicon, and iron in its core. It is on the main course table one fist above the southwest horizon at 7:30. Make sure it cools off before you take a bite.
Wednesday: “One world, group hug, love everyone” philosophy: political borders are human-made and can’t be seen from space. Real world, pragmatic discovery: some human-made political borders CAN be seen from space. Since 2003, India has illuminated its border with Pakistan to prevent illegal crossings. In August, astronaut Ron Garan took a picture of the boarder from the International Space Station. For more information, including the photo, go to http://goo.gl/mY8xG.
Thursday: Jupiter is about a half a fist below the Moon at 10 p.m.
Friday: You can use the position of the Big Dipper as a clock. During the late evening in the autumn, the Big Dipper cup is facing up to hold water. During the late evening in the spring, the Big Dipper cup is facing down to produce those spring showers. The water-holding Big Dipper is one fist above the north horizon at 11 p.m.
The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
The Ellensburg sky for the week of 9/3/11
Saturday: Geometry review: part 2. School starts this week so it is time to continue our little geometry review from last week. Did you forget last week’s lesson? Well, go to the litter box, dig out last Saturday’s paper and review it. Then go outside at 9 p.m. with notebook in hand. Ready? A square is a quadrilateral with four sides of equal length and four right angle corners. A good example in the sky is the Great Square, an asterism (group of stars) consisting of three stars from the constellation Pegasus and one star from the constellation Andromeda. At 9 p.m., the bottom of the Great Square is two fists held upright and at arm’s length above due east.
Sunday: There is a lot to see at the Kittitas County Fair. But there is not a lot to see in the sky when you are at the fair because the fair lights, which are fairly bright, obscure most celestial objects. Jupiter is one of the few objects bright enough to be seen. As you are getting home from the fair at 11 p.m., look for Jupiter about one fist above the east horizon. Luckily Galileo didn’t do his observing at the Kittitas County Fair because he would not have been able to see Jupiter’s moons. So what, you say? Galileo’s discovery of the moons of Jupiter provided strong evidence that objects other than the Earth could have satellites, thus supporting the hypothesis of a Sun-centered solar system.
Monday: Labor Day was the brainchild of labor unions and is dedicated to American workers. The first Labor Day was celebrated in 1882. The Greek mythical hero Hercules probably wished there was a Labor Day to commemorate his work. As punishment for killing his family while he was temporarily insane, he had to perform twelve nearly impossible tasks such as killing monsters or stealing things from deities. Humm. Maybe we shouldn’t commemorate his labors. But we can enjoy his constellation. The keystone asterism representing the body of Hercules is six fists above the west horizon at 10 p.m. For more information about the Labors of Hercules, go to http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/Herakles/labors.html.
Tuesday: The calendar says summer is nearing an end. School starting tomorrow says summer is nearing an end. The summer triangle in the sky begs to differ as it is still high in the sky. Vega, the brightest star in the triangle, is a little bit west of straight overhead at sunset. Deneb is a little bit east of straight overhead and Altair is five fists above the south horizon.
Wednesday: The little king must have ordered a lot of merchandise on eBay. Mercury, named after the Roman god of trades, passes by Regulus, Latin for “little king” over the next few mornings. This morning, Mercury, the brighter of the two objects, is about a finger thickness above Regulus. By Saturday morning, they’ll be side-by-side and you will not be able to fit an outstretched pinky between them. This interaction offers an excellent opportunity to see why planets are called “planets”, from the Greek word meaning “wanderer”. All planets move with respect to the background stars. Because Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun, it moves the fastest in its orbit. And it is, on average, our second nearest planetary neighbor. Both of these contribute to Mercury’s motion through the sky being the greatest of all the planets. This is probably the reason this planet was named after the speedy, messenger god.
Thursday: Fomalhaut, the brightest star in the constellation Piscis Austrinus, is one fist above the south-southeast horizon at 11 pm. It is the southernmost bright star visible from Ellensburg.
Friday: Mars is four fists above the east horizon at 6 a.m.
The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.
Sunday: There is a lot to see at the Kittitas County Fair. But there is not a lot to see in the sky when you are at the fair because the fair lights, which are fairly bright, obscure most celestial objects. Jupiter is one of the few objects bright enough to be seen. As you are getting home from the fair at 11 p.m., look for Jupiter about one fist above the east horizon. Luckily Galileo didn’t do his observing at the Kittitas County Fair because he would not have been able to see Jupiter’s moons. So what, you say? Galileo’s discovery of the moons of Jupiter provided strong evidence that objects other than the Earth could have satellites, thus supporting the hypothesis of a Sun-centered solar system.
Monday: Labor Day was the brainchild of labor unions and is dedicated to American workers. The first Labor Day was celebrated in 1882. The Greek mythical hero Hercules probably wished there was a Labor Day to commemorate his work. As punishment for killing his family while he was temporarily insane, he had to perform twelve nearly impossible tasks such as killing monsters or stealing things from deities. Humm. Maybe we shouldn’t commemorate his labors. But we can enjoy his constellation. The keystone asterism representing the body of Hercules is six fists above the west horizon at 10 p.m. For more information about the Labors of Hercules, go to http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/Herakles/labors.html.
Tuesday: The calendar says summer is nearing an end. School starting tomorrow says summer is nearing an end. The summer triangle in the sky begs to differ as it is still high in the sky. Vega, the brightest star in the triangle, is a little bit west of straight overhead at sunset. Deneb is a little bit east of straight overhead and Altair is five fists above the south horizon.
Wednesday: The little king must have ordered a lot of merchandise on eBay. Mercury, named after the Roman god of trades, passes by Regulus, Latin for “little king” over the next few mornings. This morning, Mercury, the brighter of the two objects, is about a finger thickness above Regulus. By Saturday morning, they’ll be side-by-side and you will not be able to fit an outstretched pinky between them. This interaction offers an excellent opportunity to see why planets are called “planets”, from the Greek word meaning “wanderer”. All planets move with respect to the background stars. Because Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun, it moves the fastest in its orbit. And it is, on average, our second nearest planetary neighbor. Both of these contribute to Mercury’s motion through the sky being the greatest of all the planets. This is probably the reason this planet was named after the speedy, messenger god.
Thursday: Fomalhaut, the brightest star in the constellation Piscis Austrinus, is one fist above the south-southeast horizon at 11 pm. It is the southernmost bright star visible from Ellensburg.
Friday: Mars is four fists above the east horizon at 6 a.m.
The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
The Ellensburg sky for the week of 8/27/11
Saturday: School starts next week so it is time for a little geometry review. Go outside at 10 p.m. tonight with notebook in hand. Ready? A triangle is a polygon with three corners and three line segments as sides. A good example is the Summer Triangle made up of the bright stars Vega, Deneb and Altair. Vega, the brightest star in the triangle is a little bit west of straight overhead. Deneb is a little bit east of straight overhead and Altair is five fists held upright and at arm’s length above the south horizon.
Sunday: Jupiter is one fist above the east horizon at 11 p.m.
Monday: WISE finds some Y’s and they’re as cool as your eyes. NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, WISE for short, has discovered a type of brown dwarf that astronomers are calling a Y dwarf star. Astronomers study brown to better understand how stars form and to understand the atmospheres of gas giant planets like Jupiter. These Y dwarf stars are on the classification boundary between stars that fuse hydrogen at their core, like our Sun does, and objects similar to Jupiter and other newly discovered planets that are a little too small to be a star. One of these Y dwarf stars is only nine light years away making it the seventh closest star system. For more information about this discovery, go to http://goo.gl/hRmJ2.
Tuesday: “I’m a little teapot, short and stout. The galactic center, I pour it out.” (I’m a Little Teapot, astronomy version, 2011.) Despite its great size and importance, the center of our Milky Way galaxy and its giant black hole remains hidden to the naked eye behind thick clouds of gas and dust. By plotting the orbits of stars near the middle of the galaxy, astronomers have determined that the black hole’s mass is equal to about 4.5 million Suns. While you can’t see the actual galactic center, you can gaze in the direction of the center by looking just to the right of the teapot asterism in the constellation Sagittarius. This point is about one fist above the south-southwest horizon at 9 p.m.
Wednesday: Ah, the beauty of classification. A large three-sided figure such as the Summer Triangle is a triangle. Hence the name “Summer Triangle” and not “Summer Sandwich”. Although those little triangle-shaped sandwiches are quite tasty. Where was I? Oh yes, classification. Any three-sided figure is called a triangle. Just after sunset, Saturn, the Moon, and the bright star Spica make a small right triangle very low in the west-southwest sky. Spica is a half a fist to the upper left and Saturn is a fist to the upper right of the Moon.
Thursday: The morning sky is filled with visible planets. At 5:30 a.m., Mercury is a half a fist above the east-northeast horizon, Mars is three and a half fists above the east horizon, and Jupiter is five and a half fists above the south horizon.
Friday: The Ellensburg Rodeo is a “Top-25” rodeo. What does it take to be a “Top-25” star? There are many ways to rank stars. The most obvious way for a casual observer to rank stars is by apparent brightness. The apparent brightness is the brightness of a star as seen from Earth, regardless of its distance from the Earth. Shaula (pronounced Show’-la) is the 25th brightest star in the nighttime sky as seen from Earth. It represents the stinger of Scorpius the scorpion. In fact, Shaula means stinger in Arabic. Shaula has a visual brightness rating of 1.62. Sirius, the brightest star has a visual brightness rating of -1.46. (Smaller numbers mean brighter objects.) The dimmest objects that can be seen with the naked eye have a visual brightness rating of about 6. There are approximately 6,000 stars with a lower visual brightness rating than 6 meaning there are 6,000 stars visible to the naked eye. Shaula is a blue sub-giant star that radiates 35,000 times more energy than the Sun. It is 700 light years away making it one of the most distant bright stars. Shaula is a challenge to find because it never gets more than a half a fist above the horizon. Look for it tonight about a half a fist above the south horizon, a little bit west of due south, at 8:30.
The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.
Sunday: Jupiter is one fist above the east horizon at 11 p.m.
Monday: WISE finds some Y’s and they’re as cool as your eyes. NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, WISE for short, has discovered a type of brown dwarf that astronomers are calling a Y dwarf star. Astronomers study brown to better understand how stars form and to understand the atmospheres of gas giant planets like Jupiter. These Y dwarf stars are on the classification boundary between stars that fuse hydrogen at their core, like our Sun does, and objects similar to Jupiter and other newly discovered planets that are a little too small to be a star. One of these Y dwarf stars is only nine light years away making it the seventh closest star system. For more information about this discovery, go to http://goo.gl/hRmJ2.
Tuesday: “I’m a little teapot, short and stout. The galactic center, I pour it out.” (I’m a Little Teapot, astronomy version, 2011.) Despite its great size and importance, the center of our Milky Way galaxy and its giant black hole remains hidden to the naked eye behind thick clouds of gas and dust. By plotting the orbits of stars near the middle of the galaxy, astronomers have determined that the black hole’s mass is equal to about 4.5 million Suns. While you can’t see the actual galactic center, you can gaze in the direction of the center by looking just to the right of the teapot asterism in the constellation Sagittarius. This point is about one fist above the south-southwest horizon at 9 p.m.
Wednesday: Ah, the beauty of classification. A large three-sided figure such as the Summer Triangle is a triangle. Hence the name “Summer Triangle” and not “Summer Sandwich”. Although those little triangle-shaped sandwiches are quite tasty. Where was I? Oh yes, classification. Any three-sided figure is called a triangle. Just after sunset, Saturn, the Moon, and the bright star Spica make a small right triangle very low in the west-southwest sky. Spica is a half a fist to the upper left and Saturn is a fist to the upper right of the Moon.
Thursday: The morning sky is filled with visible planets. At 5:30 a.m., Mercury is a half a fist above the east-northeast horizon, Mars is three and a half fists above the east horizon, and Jupiter is five and a half fists above the south horizon.
Friday: The Ellensburg Rodeo is a “Top-25” rodeo. What does it take to be a “Top-25” star? There are many ways to rank stars. The most obvious way for a casual observer to rank stars is by apparent brightness. The apparent brightness is the brightness of a star as seen from Earth, regardless of its distance from the Earth. Shaula (pronounced Show’-la) is the 25th brightest star in the nighttime sky as seen from Earth. It represents the stinger of Scorpius the scorpion. In fact, Shaula means stinger in Arabic. Shaula has a visual brightness rating of 1.62. Sirius, the brightest star has a visual brightness rating of -1.46. (Smaller numbers mean brighter objects.) The dimmest objects that can be seen with the naked eye have a visual brightness rating of about 6. There are approximately 6,000 stars with a lower visual brightness rating than 6 meaning there are 6,000 stars visible to the naked eye. Shaula is a blue sub-giant star that radiates 35,000 times more energy than the Sun. It is 700 light years away making it one of the most distant bright stars. Shaula is a challenge to find because it never gets more than a half a fist above the horizon. Look for it tonight about a half a fist above the south horizon, a little bit west of due south, at 8:30.
The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
The Ellensburg sky for the week of 8/20/11
Saturday: Sometimes you find a quarter on the ground. Maybe you find a dollar in the lining of your jacket. But how often do you find a galaxy in a well-known part of the sky? The Hubble Space Telescope discovered a face-on spiral galaxy in the Coma Cluster of galaxies about 320 million light years away. This galaxy, called NGC 4911, contains regions of gas and dust as well as glowing newborn star clusters. The Coma Star cluster is in the constellation Coma Berenices, found two and a half fists held upright and at arm’s length above the west horizon at 9 p.m. For more information about this newly discovered galaxy, plus a zoomable image, go to http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2010/24/.
Sunday: This is a great time to observe Neptune because is in opposition tomorrow night. That doesn't mean Neptune is now a teenager. Opposition means that Neptune is on the opposite side of the Earth as the Sun. An object is in opposition when it is due south 12 hours after the Sun. Thus, when an object is in opposition, it is at its highest point in the sky during the darkest time of the day. Neptune is near the boundary of the constellations Capricornus the sea goat and Aquarius the water bearer, about two and a half fists above the southeast horizon at 11 p.m. It is easy to see with binoculars. First find the bright star Fomalhaut just above the southeast horizon. Neptune is exactly 20 degrees, or two fists held upright and at arm’s length, above Fomalhaut.
Monday: You: “I’d like a chocolate cluster for a snack, please.”
Moon: “Not me. I’d like an open star cluster for breakfast.” The Moon will get its request because it is midway between the Pleiades and Hyades open star clusters this morning in the southeastern sky. These clusters, while not as tasty as chocolate clusters, are regions of the galaxy where very young stars can be found. Stars in the Hyades cluster are about 600 million years old and stars in the Pleiades are a very toddler-like 100 million years old. (By comparison, the Sun is about 5 billion years old.) The Hyades cluster is a little less than a fist below the Moon and the Pleiades is a little less than a fist above the Moon at 5 a.m.
Tuesday: You may have trouble holding in your water at midnight. But not the Big Dipper. The cup of the Big Dipper is facing upward in a water-holding orientation about two fists above the north horizon at midnight.
Wednesday: Vega, the third brightest star visible from Ellensburg and the entire northern section of the United States, flies nearly straight overhead at 9 p.m.
Thursday: Mars is about a half a fist to the upper left of the Moon at 5 a.m.
Friday: The Sun is finally moving out of it period of having few or no sunspots. But while the Sun was inactive, astronomers were studying sunspots on other stars such as Corot-2a, a star that is similar to the Sun but much younger. Astronomers noticed that the brightness drop of Corot-2a was slightly different every time its planet Corot-2b passed in front of it. They thought it should be the same since the same planet was passing in front of it. So, the astronomers concluded the variation in brightness was due to sunspots on Corot-2a. For more information about this, go to http://www.skyandtelescope.com/news/home/49444867.html.
The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.
Sunday: This is a great time to observe Neptune because is in opposition tomorrow night. That doesn't mean Neptune is now a teenager. Opposition means that Neptune is on the opposite side of the Earth as the Sun. An object is in opposition when it is due south 12 hours after the Sun. Thus, when an object is in opposition, it is at its highest point in the sky during the darkest time of the day. Neptune is near the boundary of the constellations Capricornus the sea goat and Aquarius the water bearer, about two and a half fists above the southeast horizon at 11 p.m. It is easy to see with binoculars. First find the bright star Fomalhaut just above the southeast horizon. Neptune is exactly 20 degrees, or two fists held upright and at arm’s length, above Fomalhaut.
Monday: You: “I’d like a chocolate cluster for a snack, please.”
Moon: “Not me. I’d like an open star cluster for breakfast.” The Moon will get its request because it is midway between the Pleiades and Hyades open star clusters this morning in the southeastern sky. These clusters, while not as tasty as chocolate clusters, are regions of the galaxy where very young stars can be found. Stars in the Hyades cluster are about 600 million years old and stars in the Pleiades are a very toddler-like 100 million years old. (By comparison, the Sun is about 5 billion years old.) The Hyades cluster is a little less than a fist below the Moon and the Pleiades is a little less than a fist above the Moon at 5 a.m.
Tuesday: You may have trouble holding in your water at midnight. But not the Big Dipper. The cup of the Big Dipper is facing upward in a water-holding orientation about two fists above the north horizon at midnight.
Wednesday: Vega, the third brightest star visible from Ellensburg and the entire northern section of the United States, flies nearly straight overhead at 9 p.m.
Thursday: Mars is about a half a fist to the upper left of the Moon at 5 a.m.
Friday: The Sun is finally moving out of it period of having few or no sunspots. But while the Sun was inactive, astronomers were studying sunspots on other stars such as Corot-2a, a star that is similar to the Sun but much younger. Astronomers noticed that the brightness drop of Corot-2a was slightly different every time its planet Corot-2b passed in front of it. They thought it should be the same since the same planet was passing in front of it. So, the astronomers concluded the variation in brightness was due to sunspots on Corot-2a. For more information about this, go to http://www.skyandtelescope.com/news/home/49444867.html.
The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
The Ellensburg sky for the week of 8/13/11
Saturday: When the Moon is full, it is difficult to see dim objects in the sky because of the sky glow. But why struggle to find dim objects when there is so much to see on the big, bright object in front of you? The lunar crater called Tycho is best seen during a full Moon. Tycho was formed about 109 million years ago when an asteroid struck the Moon, leaving a crater over 50 miles in diameter and ejected dust trails that radiate out hundreds of miles in all directions. For more lunar highlights, go to
http://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/docs/ObserveMoon.pdf, a resource of the Night Sky Network.
Sunday: Many big city dwellers never see the milky white, nearly continuous band of stars known as the Milky Way. As cities grow and add more lights, it has become harder to see the bulk of the Milky Way galaxy, our home in the universe. But, there are two easy ways to see the Milky Way. The first way is to look in the mirror. You are part of the Milky Way. The second way is to look from due north through the point straight overhead (called the zenith) to due south from 10:30 p.m. to 1 a.m. for the next two weeks. This is the time of year when the Milky Way is highest in the sky and away from the city lights on the horizon.
Monday: Need a caffeine pick-me-up? Make it a double. Need an astronomy pick-me-up? Make it a double-double. Find Vega, in the constellation Lyra the lyre, nearly straight overhead at 11:00 tonight. Less than half a fist to the east (or left if you are facing south) of the bright bluish star 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.
Tuesday: You think the Ellensburg wind is bad. Some of the Jovian planets have winds of over 1000 miles per hour. Jupiter and Saturn have belts of clouds that can be observed with back yard telescopes. You’ll have to look quickly to see Saturn. It is a half a fist held upright and at arm’s length above the west horizon at 9:30 p.m. In a few days, it will be lost in the glare of the Sun. To learn more about Saturn and other windy worlds, go to http://goo.gl/GLWAi.
Wednesday: Deneb is about seven fists above the east horizon at 10 p.m. When you look at Deneb, you are seeing light that left Deneb about 1,800 years ago.
Thursday: Fomalhaut, the bright star in the Piscis Austrinus, the Southern Fishes, is about one fist above the southeast horizon at midnight. It is the southernmost bright star visible from Ellensburg.
Friday: Jupiter, another windy planet, is a half a fist to the lower right of the Moon at midnight tonight. The Great Red Spot on Jupiter is a storm larger than the Earth that has been raging for over 400 years.
The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.
http://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/docs/ObserveMoon.pdf, a resource of the Night Sky Network.
Sunday: Many big city dwellers never see the milky white, nearly continuous band of stars known as the Milky Way. As cities grow and add more lights, it has become harder to see the bulk of the Milky Way galaxy, our home in the universe. But, there are two easy ways to see the Milky Way. The first way is to look in the mirror. You are part of the Milky Way. The second way is to look from due north through the point straight overhead (called the zenith) to due south from 10:30 p.m. to 1 a.m. for the next two weeks. This is the time of year when the Milky Way is highest in the sky and away from the city lights on the horizon.
Monday: Need a caffeine pick-me-up? Make it a double. Need an astronomy pick-me-up? Make it a double-double. Find Vega, in the constellation Lyra the lyre, nearly straight overhead at 11:00 tonight. Less than half a fist to the east (or left if you are facing south) of the bright bluish star 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.
Tuesday: You think the Ellensburg wind is bad. Some of the Jovian planets have winds of over 1000 miles per hour. Jupiter and Saturn have belts of clouds that can be observed with back yard telescopes. You’ll have to look quickly to see Saturn. It is a half a fist held upright and at arm’s length above the west horizon at 9:30 p.m. In a few days, it will be lost in the glare of the Sun. To learn more about Saturn and other windy worlds, go to http://goo.gl/GLWAi.
Wednesday: Deneb is about seven fists above the east horizon at 10 p.m. When you look at Deneb, you are seeing light that left Deneb about 1,800 years ago.
Thursday: Fomalhaut, the bright star in the Piscis Austrinus, the Southern Fishes, is about one fist above the southeast horizon at midnight. It is the southernmost bright star visible from Ellensburg.
Friday: Jupiter, another windy planet, is a half a fist to the lower right of the Moon at midnight tonight. The Great Red Spot on Jupiter is a storm larger than the Earth that has been raging for over 400 years.
The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.
The Ellensburg sky for the week of 8/6/11
Saturday: It’s a moonless August morning. The first remnant of dawn has not appeared yet. Suddenly, you notice a large softly radiant pyramid of light in the east sky. The base of this ghostly triangle is along the east horizon and the peak stretches two or three fists held upright and at arm’s length above the horizon about two hours before sunrise. Don’t be scared. It’s not really a ghost. It is an effect called the zodiacal light. This light comes from sunlight reflecting off dust grains in our solar system. The effect is the most visible when the band of constellations called the zodiac makes a steep angle with the horizon. You need a clear dark sky with no haze or light pollution to see the zodiacal light. At its brightest, the zodiacal light rivals the light of the central Milky Way. This is one of the best times of year to see the zodiacal light in the morning.
This is also one of the best times of the year to see meteors. The Perseid meteor shower peaks this week.
Sunday: The Moon seems to move with precision tonight, moving between the head and the heart of Scorpius the celestial scorpion. Antares, representing the heart of the scorpion, is about a half a fist to the lower left of the Moon at 11 p.m.
Monday: The NASA probe called Dawn is orbiting the asteroid Vesta. Go to http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/ for more information about the Dawn mission and to see some fascinating photos of Vesta. Go to your binoculars to see Vesta for yourself in the constellation Capricornus. First find Deneb Algiedi, the brightest star in the constellation, two fists above the southeast horizon. Place this star in the upper left portion of your field of view, at the 10 o’clock position. Then move your binoculars toward the 4 o’clock position until two fairly bright stars come into your field of view. These two stars are close together, aligned diagonally, about half as bright as Deneb Algiedi. Next, place these stars in the upper left portion of your field of view, at the 10 o’clock position. Then move your binoculars toward the 4 o’clock position until a star about half as bright as these two comes into your field of view. Finally, move this star to the bottom of your field of view. Vesta will be near the middle of your field of view. It is about a finger width above this star, called 24 Capricorni.
Tuesday: Astronomers from the Beijing Planetarium recently identified a 30-ton meteorite in Northwest China. Just like asteroids such as Vesta, meteorites provide clues to the formation of the Solar System. Sometimes we spend millions of dollars on space probes to search for the evidence. Sometimes the evidence comes to us free of charge. See http://www.skyandtelescope.com/news/home/126009563.html for more information.
Wednesday: Had the script been written a little differently for a well-known Robin Williams movie, we might have heard Mr. Williams shout, “Goooood Morning Orion the hunter”. Orion is typically thought of as a winter constellation. But, it makes its first appearance in the summer sky. The lowest corner of Orion’s body, represented by the star Saiph (pronounced “safe”), rises at 4:30 a.m., well before the Sun. By 5 a.m., Orion’s belt is about one fist above the east-southeast horizon.
Thursday: Saturn is less than a fist above the west horizon at 9:30 p.m.
Friday: The Perseid meteor shower peaks late tonight and early tomorrow morning. 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 p.m. By 4 a.m., the peak time, 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 midnight to dawn for a few days before and after tonight in about the same location in the sky. The Perseid shower is one of the longest lasting showers. With dark skies, you can see up to 100 meteors per hour in the late night and early morning hours all week. Unfortunately, the nearly full Moon will obscure all but the brightest fireballs. As your Mother might say, dress warm and sit in a comfortable chair for maximum enjoyment. These meteors are sand to pea-sized bits of rock that fell off of Comet Swift-Tuttle. They are traveling about 40 miles per second as they collide with the Earth and burn up in the atmosphere. For more tips about meteor watching, go to http://goo.gl/6glPq.
The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.
This is also one of the best times of the year to see meteors. The Perseid meteor shower peaks this week.
Sunday: The Moon seems to move with precision tonight, moving between the head and the heart of Scorpius the celestial scorpion. Antares, representing the heart of the scorpion, is about a half a fist to the lower left of the Moon at 11 p.m.
Monday: The NASA probe called Dawn is orbiting the asteroid Vesta. Go to http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/ for more information about the Dawn mission and to see some fascinating photos of Vesta. Go to your binoculars to see Vesta for yourself in the constellation Capricornus. First find Deneb Algiedi, the brightest star in the constellation, two fists above the southeast horizon. Place this star in the upper left portion of your field of view, at the 10 o’clock position. Then move your binoculars toward the 4 o’clock position until two fairly bright stars come into your field of view. These two stars are close together, aligned diagonally, about half as bright as Deneb Algiedi. Next, place these stars in the upper left portion of your field of view, at the 10 o’clock position. Then move your binoculars toward the 4 o’clock position until a star about half as bright as these two comes into your field of view. Finally, move this star to the bottom of your field of view. Vesta will be near the middle of your field of view. It is about a finger width above this star, called 24 Capricorni.
Tuesday: Astronomers from the Beijing Planetarium recently identified a 30-ton meteorite in Northwest China. Just like asteroids such as Vesta, meteorites provide clues to the formation of the Solar System. Sometimes we spend millions of dollars on space probes to search for the evidence. Sometimes the evidence comes to us free of charge. See http://www.skyandtelescope.com/news/home/126009563.html for more information.
Wednesday: Had the script been written a little differently for a well-known Robin Williams movie, we might have heard Mr. Williams shout, “Goooood Morning Orion the hunter”. Orion is typically thought of as a winter constellation. But, it makes its first appearance in the summer sky. The lowest corner of Orion’s body, represented by the star Saiph (pronounced “safe”), rises at 4:30 a.m., well before the Sun. By 5 a.m., Orion’s belt is about one fist above the east-southeast horizon.
Thursday: Saturn is less than a fist above the west horizon at 9:30 p.m.
Friday: The Perseid meteor shower peaks late tonight and early tomorrow morning. 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 p.m. By 4 a.m., the peak time, 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 midnight to dawn for a few days before and after tonight in about the same location in the sky. The Perseid shower is one of the longest lasting showers. With dark skies, you can see up to 100 meteors per hour in the late night and early morning hours all week. Unfortunately, the nearly full Moon will obscure all but the brightest fireballs. As your Mother might say, dress warm and sit in a comfortable chair for maximum enjoyment. These meteors are sand to pea-sized bits of rock that fell off of Comet Swift-Tuttle. They are traveling about 40 miles per second as they collide with the Earth and burn up in the atmosphere. For more tips about meteor watching, go to http://goo.gl/6glPq.
The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
The Ellensburg sky for the week of 7/30/11
Saturday: Tonight’s Moon is new. Don’t bother looking for it. The new moon is the phase where the Moon is directly between the Earth and the Sun. Hence the side of the Moon facing Earth is not receiving any sunlight and cannot be seen. Typically a new Moon announcement is ho hum. But not during a meteor shower. The Southern Delta Aquarid meteor shower is just coming down from peak numbers and should provide increased early morning meteors for the next three weeks. These meteors appear to come from a point in Aquarius near the star Delta Aquarii, also known as Skat. This point is about one and a half fists held upright and at arm’s length above the southeast horizon at 1 a.m. this week. You can follow this point throughout the night as it will remain a fist above Fomalhaut, the brightest star in that section of the sky.
Sunday: What are some of the signs of August? 1. Hot weather. 2. Back to school sales. 3. A chain email saying Mars will look as big as a full moon this month. The first two are true. The third one never was and never will be. In August of 2003, Mars was as close to Earth as it had been in all of written history. With the right telescope magnification, it could look as large as the moon without magnification. But, even then, Mars did not appear even as large as Jupiter always does. This year, Mars is about half its maximum apparent size. Mars is one and a half fists above the east-northeast horizon at 4 a.m.
Monday: In Scotland, August 1 was known as Lammas, the festival of the first wheat harvest of the year. You can remember this by looking at Spica, named after the Latin word for “ear of wheat”, one fist held upright and at arm’s length above the west-southwest horizon at 9:30 p.m. August 1 is known as a cross-quarter day, a day approximately half way between an equinox and a solstice.
Tuesday: Have you ever built a house? You probably had some material left over. If scientists studied that material, they could learn a lot about how your house was constructed, the origin of your house. In fact, studying the building scraps would probably teach them more about the origin of your house than if they studied your house in its current state. After all, your house has been repainted and remodeled. Asteroids are the leftover material from the origin of our Solar System. Scientists study them to learn more about how the Solar System was formed. The NASA probe called Dawn is orbiting Vesta, one of the largest asteroids in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. For more information about Dawn, go to http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/.
Wednesday: Saturn is one fist above the west-southwest horizon at 10 p.m., just above the nearly setting Moon.
Thursday: We read a lot about how kids nowadays are heavier than they used to be. You don’t read that about stars… until now. Last summer, astronomers from the European Southern Observatory discovered the most massive stars in the universe using their Very Large Telescope (yes, that’s its real name). These two stars are about 300 times more massive than the Sun or twice as massive as the largest stars previously known. In addition to being very massive, they are several million times brighter than our Sun. Their brightness compared to the Sun is the same as the Sun’s brightness compared to the full moon. Neither of these stars is visible from Ellensburg. For more information, go to http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1030/.
Friday: Jupiter is a half a fist above the east-northeast horizon at midnight.
The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.
Sunday: What are some of the signs of August? 1. Hot weather. 2. Back to school sales. 3. A chain email saying Mars will look as big as a full moon this month. The first two are true. The third one never was and never will be. In August of 2003, Mars was as close to Earth as it had been in all of written history. With the right telescope magnification, it could look as large as the moon without magnification. But, even then, Mars did not appear even as large as Jupiter always does. This year, Mars is about half its maximum apparent size. Mars is one and a half fists above the east-northeast horizon at 4 a.m.
Monday: In Scotland, August 1 was known as Lammas, the festival of the first wheat harvest of the year. You can remember this by looking at Spica, named after the Latin word for “ear of wheat”, one fist held upright and at arm’s length above the west-southwest horizon at 9:30 p.m. August 1 is known as a cross-quarter day, a day approximately half way between an equinox and a solstice.
Tuesday: Have you ever built a house? You probably had some material left over. If scientists studied that material, they could learn a lot about how your house was constructed, the origin of your house. In fact, studying the building scraps would probably teach them more about the origin of your house than if they studied your house in its current state. After all, your house has been repainted and remodeled. Asteroids are the leftover material from the origin of our Solar System. Scientists study them to learn more about how the Solar System was formed. The NASA probe called Dawn is orbiting Vesta, one of the largest asteroids in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. For more information about Dawn, go to http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/.
Wednesday: Saturn is one fist above the west-southwest horizon at 10 p.m., just above the nearly setting Moon.
Thursday: We read a lot about how kids nowadays are heavier than they used to be. You don’t read that about stars… until now. Last summer, astronomers from the European Southern Observatory discovered the most massive stars in the universe using their Very Large Telescope (yes, that’s its real name). These two stars are about 300 times more massive than the Sun or twice as massive as the largest stars previously known. In addition to being very massive, they are several million times brighter than our Sun. Their brightness compared to the Sun is the same as the Sun’s brightness compared to the full moon. Neither of these stars is visible from Ellensburg. For more information, go to http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1030/.
Friday: Jupiter is a half a fist above the east-northeast horizon at midnight.
The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.
Friday, July 22, 2011
The Ellensburg sky for the week of 7/23/11
Saturday: The Southern Delta Aquarid meteor shower peaks for the next few nights and early mornings with the greatest concentration of meteors being visible Friday night and Saturday morning. 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 one and a half fists held upright and at arm’s length above the southeast horizon at 1 am tomorrow morning. You can follow this point throughout the night as it will remain a fist above Fomalhaut, the brightest star in that section of the sky. This year, the Moon will be near the new phase meaning visibility will be maximized. As you 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.
Sunday: Do you want an easy way to find due north? A compass points to magnetic north, which is a few degrees off of true geographic north. Well, tonight’s your night. Capella, the brightest star in the constellation Auriga the Charioteer, is due north at exactly 10:14 p.m. It looks like a bright light on a pole on the north ridge because is only about one degree above the horizon.
Monday: Say "Cheese". 159 years ago this month, Vega, in the constellation Lyra the lyre, became the first star ever photographed. The photograph was done 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 11:00 tonight.
Tuesday: Hercules stands directly overhead this evening. Four moderately bright stars form a lopsided square that represents his body, while his head points southward. The monsters he has dispatched such as Hydra the water snake surround him.
Wednesday: The recently completed sequel to the musical “South Pacific” called “Viewing the South Pacific Sky” will be opening this morning on the island of Tahiti. Critics are raving about the remake of the song “Some Enchanted Evening with the lyrics “some enchanted evening, you may see an occultation, you may see an occultation across a crowded sky.” Just before sunrise this morning in Tahiti, the Moon will pass in front of Mars and block it from view. This is called an occultation. As viewed from Central Washington, Mars will be a couple finger widths to the lower left of the Moon at 5 a.m. and not be blocked by it.
Thursday: Saturn is one fist above the west-southwest horizon at 10 p.m.
Friday: It’s Friday night. You like to stay up late. Why not make it productive and look at the planet Jupiter and its largest moons. Jupiter is one fist above the east horizon at 1 a.m. tonight. With binoculars and a steady mount such as a tripod or the shoulders of a friend, you can see two to four of Jupiter’s Galilean moons.
Wait a minute. We got all the way to the end of the week with no Moon phase summary? How can that be? There are 29.5 days between the same Moon phase in two different cycles. That means about 7.5 days between the phases new, first quarter, full and last quarter. Since a week is seven days, there are some weeks in which none of the main phases occur. This week, the Moon was always in the waning crescent phase.
The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.
Sunday: Do you want an easy way to find due north? A compass points to magnetic north, which is a few degrees off of true geographic north. Well, tonight’s your night. Capella, the brightest star in the constellation Auriga the Charioteer, is due north at exactly 10:14 p.m. It looks like a bright light on a pole on the north ridge because is only about one degree above the horizon.
Monday: Say "Cheese". 159 years ago this month, Vega, in the constellation Lyra the lyre, became the first star ever photographed. The photograph was done 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 11:00 tonight.
Tuesday: Hercules stands directly overhead this evening. Four moderately bright stars form a lopsided square that represents his body, while his head points southward. The monsters he has dispatched such as Hydra the water snake surround him.
Wednesday: The recently completed sequel to the musical “South Pacific” called “Viewing the South Pacific Sky” will be opening this morning on the island of Tahiti. Critics are raving about the remake of the song “Some Enchanted Evening with the lyrics “some enchanted evening, you may see an occultation, you may see an occultation across a crowded sky.” Just before sunrise this morning in Tahiti, the Moon will pass in front of Mars and block it from view. This is called an occultation. As viewed from Central Washington, Mars will be a couple finger widths to the lower left of the Moon at 5 a.m. and not be blocked by it.
Thursday: Saturn is one fist above the west-southwest horizon at 10 p.m.
Friday: It’s Friday night. You like to stay up late. Why not make it productive and look at the planet Jupiter and its largest moons. Jupiter is one fist above the east horizon at 1 a.m. tonight. With binoculars and a steady mount such as a tripod or the shoulders of a friend, you can see two to four of Jupiter’s Galilean moons.
Wait a minute. We got all the way to the end of the week with no Moon phase summary? How can that be? There are 29.5 days between the same Moon phase in two different cycles. That means about 7.5 days between the phases new, first quarter, full and last quarter. Since a week is seven days, there are some weeks in which none of the main phases occur. This week, the Moon was always in the waning crescent phase.
The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
The Ellensburg sky for the week of 7/16/11
Saturday: The NASA probe called Dawn will enter into orbit around the asteroid Vesta today. Launched in September 2007, Dawn will orbit Vesta for one year, mapping the surface and determining exactly what Vesta is made of. Since asteroids don’t undergo nearly as much surface change as planets, they preserve the important evidence of how the solar system was formed. By comparison, the Earth’s surface is extremely young. For more information about Dawn and Vesta, go to http://goo.gl/LViWl.
Sunday: 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 four fists held upright and at arm’s length above the west horizon at 10:30 p.m.
Monday: Mercury is less than a half a fist above the west-northwest horizon at 9:30 p.m. The slightly dimmer star Regulus is about one fist to the upper left of Mercury. This week is the best week for viewing Mercury in the evening sky for the next few months. After this Wednesday, it will move toward the Sun in the sky, soon being lost in the Sun’s glare.
Tuesday: 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 six fists above the southeast horizon at 10:30 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 four fists above the southeast 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.
Wednesday: Take a two and a half hour walk. Too long, you say? Forty-two 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. Michael Collins orbited the Moon in the spacecraft the three astronauts would use to return to Earth.
Thursday: Saturn is two fists above the west-southwest horizon at 10 p.m. The star Spica, which is nearly the same brightness as Saturn, is a fist and a half to the left of Saturn.
Friday: Shaula, the star that represents the stinger of Scorpius the scorpion, is a half a fist above due south at 11 p.m.
The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.
Sunday: 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 four fists held upright and at arm’s length above the west horizon at 10:30 p.m.
Monday: Mercury is less than a half a fist above the west-northwest horizon at 9:30 p.m. The slightly dimmer star Regulus is about one fist to the upper left of Mercury. This week is the best week for viewing Mercury in the evening sky for the next few months. After this Wednesday, it will move toward the Sun in the sky, soon being lost in the Sun’s glare.
Tuesday: 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 six fists above the southeast horizon at 10:30 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 four fists above the southeast 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.
Wednesday: Take a two and a half hour walk. Too long, you say? Forty-two 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. Michael Collins orbited the Moon in the spacecraft the three astronauts would use to return to Earth.
Thursday: Saturn is two fists above the west-southwest horizon at 10 p.m. The star Spica, which is nearly the same brightness as Saturn, is a fist and a half to the left of Saturn.
Friday: Shaula, the star that represents the stinger of Scorpius the scorpion, is a half a fist above due south at 11 p.m.
The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
The Ellensburg sky for the week of 7/9/11
Saturday: At 10 p.m., the bright star Regulus is a little less than one fist held upright and at arm’s length above the west horizon. But, who is this Regulus? He has many potential identities. The most interesting from a pop culture standpoint is Regulus Black, the brother of Sirius Black who is Harry Potter’s godfather. 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. He would be in the pile of forgotten Harry Potter characters except that he is so interesting. Also, in the sixth book, Harry found an important note written by someone known only by the initials R.A.B. Humm. R.A.B. Regulus A. Black perhaps? If you’re too lazy to read the books to learn more about R.A.B., the final Harry Potter movie called Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2, is coming out this Friday.
Sunday: But what does the “A” stand for? Anthony? Abercrombie? Alfonzo? Not astronomical enough. It stands for Arcturus, the second brightest star visible in the nighttime sky in Washington and at Hogwarts. Arcturus is five fists above the southwest horizon at 10 a.m. The bright star Spica and Saturn are halfway between Arcturus and the southwest horizon and about a fist and a half from each other. Spica is the slightly brighter object on the left within the pair.
Monday: Bellatrix Lestrange is Sirius Black’s cousin. But, far from being 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. You can find it a half a fist above the east horizon at 4:30 am. But, don’t turn you back on it!
Tuesday: Of course, Bellatrix is in cahoots with “he who must not be named”. Now, that’s a poor sentence, using an obscure synonym for “conspiring” and a non-specific reference. 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 two fists above the east-northeast horizon at 4 a.m.
Wednesday: 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 nearly straight overhead at 11 p.m.
Thursday: The full Luna Lovegood is in the constellation Sagittarius the archer tonight. Happy Potter’s friend, Moon, once again helps him battle Lord Voldemort. Oops, did I mix up those names?
Friday: Not every woman in the Black family is evil. Andromeda Black, Bellatrix’s sister, is a good witch and the mother of Tonks, a young witch from the last few Harry Potter books. (If these Harry Potter references are confusing, talk to a young adolescent about them.) Andromeda the constellation is an interesting one. It contains the Andromeda galaxy, the most distant object visible with the naked eye from a dark site. To locate the Andromeda Galaxy, first find the Great Square of Pegasus. At 11:00 p.m., the left hand corner of the square is about two fists above the east-northeast horizon. Less than two fists to the left and down a little bit is another star the same brightness as the star at the corner of the square. From that star, hop about a half a fist up to a star that is about one fourth as bright. Less than another half fist in the same direction is a fuzzy oval patch of light known as the Andromeda Galaxy. The galaxy is impressive to see in binoculars. It consists of about 400 billion stars and is 2.2 million light years away.
The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.
Sunday: But what does the “A” stand for? Anthony? Abercrombie? Alfonzo? Not astronomical enough. It stands for Arcturus, the second brightest star visible in the nighttime sky in Washington and at Hogwarts. Arcturus is five fists above the southwest horizon at 10 a.m. The bright star Spica and Saturn are halfway between Arcturus and the southwest horizon and about a fist and a half from each other. Spica is the slightly brighter object on the left within the pair.
Monday: Bellatrix Lestrange is Sirius Black’s cousin. But, far from being 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. You can find it a half a fist above the east horizon at 4:30 am. But, don’t turn you back on it!
Tuesday: Of course, Bellatrix is in cahoots with “he who must not be named”. Now, that’s a poor sentence, using an obscure synonym for “conspiring” and a non-specific reference. 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 two fists above the east-northeast horizon at 4 a.m.
Wednesday: 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 nearly straight overhead at 11 p.m.
Thursday: The full Luna Lovegood is in the constellation Sagittarius the archer tonight. Happy Potter’s friend, Moon, once again helps him battle Lord Voldemort. Oops, did I mix up those names?
Friday: Not every woman in the Black family is evil. Andromeda Black, Bellatrix’s sister, is a good witch and the mother of Tonks, a young witch from the last few Harry Potter books. (If these Harry Potter references are confusing, talk to a young adolescent about them.) Andromeda the constellation is an interesting one. It contains the Andromeda galaxy, the most distant object visible with the naked eye from a dark site. To locate the Andromeda Galaxy, first find the Great Square of Pegasus. At 11:00 p.m., the left hand corner of the square is about two fists above the east-northeast horizon. Less than two fists to the left and down a little bit is another star the same brightness as the star at the corner of the square. From that star, hop about a half a fist up to a star that is about one fourth as bright. Less than another half fist in the same direction is a fuzzy oval patch of light known as the Andromeda Galaxy. The galaxy is impressive to see in binoculars. It consists of about 400 billion stars and is 2.2 million light years away.
The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
The Ellensburg sky for the week of 7/2/11
What's up in the sky 7/2/11
Today: Monday night, while you are looking at an explosion of fireworks, the NASA spacecraft Kepler may be looking at an “explosion” of exoplanets. So far, Kepler has found 16 planets whose presence has been confirmed by other means and evidence of 1,235 planet candidates. Something is called a planet candidate when the light from a star being observed by Kepler dims in a systematic way. Astronomers still need to compare the pattern of dimming with the potential pattern of star wobble caused by being tugged on by one or more planets before they can say for certain that they have actually found planets orbiting these stars. But if even half of these stars show the characteristic wobble, it will more than double the number of planets known to orbit other stars, also known as exoplanets. And this is only the beginning. The Kepler spacecraft is monitoring the brightness of over 156,000 stars in the constellations Cygnus the swan and Lyra the lyre. This region is midway between the bright stars Deneb and Vega. It is about the size of your hand held at arm’s length and is about six fists held upright and at arm’s length above due east at 11 p.m.
Sunday: 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 Earth-Sun distance is 152.1 million kilometers tomorrow. This is called aphelion from the Greek prefix “apo” meaning “apart” and Helios, the Greek god of the Sun.
Monday: The little king gets mooned! Regulus, Latin for “little king”, is less than a fist from the upper right-hand portion of the Moon at 9:30 p.m.
Tuesday: When people find out that you read this column, they may ask you all sorts of tough astronomy questions such as “Where can I see the Milky Way?” That one is easy. Just look in the mirror. We are all part of the Milky Way. The center of the Milky Way galaxy is in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius, about one and a half fists above due south at 11:30 p.m.
Wednesday: The elusive Mercury is a half a fist above the west-northwest horizon at 9:45 p.m. It will be hard to see in the glow of the setting sun. But I know you can find it. I have much more faith in you than in that person standing next to you reading the celebrity magazine. “Best Beach body!” Puh-lease.
Thursday: In 1982, the Australian rock group Men at Work sang “Isolation, rows and rows of cars. Isolation, like Jupiter and Mars” in their song “Catch a Star”. Mars is certainly not isolated this week. It is about a half a fist to the upper left of the open star cluster called the Hyades cluster. They are one and a half fists above the east-northeast horizon at 4:30 a.m. Jupiter, on the other hand, is in a portion of the sky with no other bright stars. It is three fists above the east-southeast horizon at this time.
Friday: Saturn is two and a half fists above the southwest horizon at 10 p.m.
The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.
Today: Monday night, while you are looking at an explosion of fireworks, the NASA spacecraft Kepler may be looking at an “explosion” of exoplanets. So far, Kepler has found 16 planets whose presence has been confirmed by other means and evidence of 1,235 planet candidates. Something is called a planet candidate when the light from a star being observed by Kepler dims in a systematic way. Astronomers still need to compare the pattern of dimming with the potential pattern of star wobble caused by being tugged on by one or more planets before they can say for certain that they have actually found planets orbiting these stars. But if even half of these stars show the characteristic wobble, it will more than double the number of planets known to orbit other stars, also known as exoplanets. And this is only the beginning. The Kepler spacecraft is monitoring the brightness of over 156,000 stars in the constellations Cygnus the swan and Lyra the lyre. This region is midway between the bright stars Deneb and Vega. It is about the size of your hand held at arm’s length and is about six fists held upright and at arm’s length above due east at 11 p.m.
Sunday: 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 Earth-Sun distance is 152.1 million kilometers tomorrow. This is called aphelion from the Greek prefix “apo” meaning “apart” and Helios, the Greek god of the Sun.
Monday: The little king gets mooned! Regulus, Latin for “little king”, is less than a fist from the upper right-hand portion of the Moon at 9:30 p.m.
Tuesday: When people find out that you read this column, they may ask you all sorts of tough astronomy questions such as “Where can I see the Milky Way?” That one is easy. Just look in the mirror. We are all part of the Milky Way. The center of the Milky Way galaxy is in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius, about one and a half fists above due south at 11:30 p.m.
Wednesday: The elusive Mercury is a half a fist above the west-northwest horizon at 9:45 p.m. It will be hard to see in the glow of the setting sun. But I know you can find it. I have much more faith in you than in that person standing next to you reading the celebrity magazine. “Best Beach body!” Puh-lease.
Thursday: In 1982, the Australian rock group Men at Work sang “Isolation, rows and rows of cars. Isolation, like Jupiter and Mars” in their song “Catch a Star”. Mars is certainly not isolated this week. It is about a half a fist to the upper left of the open star cluster called the Hyades cluster. They are one and a half fists above the east-northeast horizon at 4:30 a.m. Jupiter, on the other hand, is in a portion of the sky with no other bright stars. It is three fists above the east-southeast horizon at this time.
Friday: Saturn is two and a half fists above the southwest horizon at 10 p.m.
The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.
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