Saturday: “Mom,
I can’t sleep. It is too light out!” A poor excuse you say? Good astronomy
skills, I say. The latest sunset of the year happens over the next two weeks.
Surprisingly, the earliest sunrise and the latest sunset do not both happen on
the longest day of the year, the day of the summer solstice. The earliest
sunrise occurs just before the longest day and the latest sunset occurs just
after the longest day. (The earliest sunrise happened last week.) This
phenomenon relates to the angle of the Sun’s path near rising and setting. In
Ellensburg, that angle is about 66 degrees near the first day of summer.
Because of the Earth’s orbit, which causes the Sun’s apparent motion, the
angles are not symmetric. The asymmetry in orbital angles leads to the
asymmetry in rise and set times. By the way, the “can’t sleep because it is too
light out” line may just be an excuse because the sunset times change by only a
few seconds each day this time of year. The sun sets between 9:01 and 9:02 p.m.
between June 21 and July 3 2012.
Sunday: Do
you have a dad that is so great that you wish you could write his name in
galaxies? Now you can. UK astronomer Steven Bamford has developed a computer
program that finds images of galaxies that resemble different letters. Just
enter the words here http://goo.gl/dTkPE and
the program spells it out in galaxies. Here’s a word I learned from the
Ellensburg High School class of 2012 http://mygalaxies.co.uk/ssmcyi/.
And here’s the new Daily Record title page http://mygalaxies.co.uk/jh2m7m/.
Monday: Summer
is nearly here. How do I know? Because my kids are home from school. Also,
because the Summer Triangle is fairly high in the eastern sky at 10 p.m. Vega,
the third brightest star visible from Ellensburg, is about five fists held
upright and at arm’s length above the east horizon. Deneb, at the tail of
Cygnus the swan is about three and a half fists above the northeast horizon.
The third star in the triangle, Altair, in Aquila the eagle is two fists above
the east horizon.
If you
want to put somebody off, tell her or him to wait until Deneb sets. At
Ellensburg’s latitude of 47 degrees, Deneb is a circumpolar star meaning it
never goes below the horizon.
Tuesday: 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. This is why some
people call this phase the “dark moon” and reserve the name “new moon” for the
first visible waxing crescent after the Moon moves out from directly between
the Earth and Sun.
Wednesday:
Today is the first day of summer, the day that the Sun reaches its highest
declination (the official name for sky latitude) of 23.5 degrees above the
celestial equator. The celestial equator is the line that divides the northern
sky from the southern sky. In Ellensburg, the Sun is about seven fists held
upright and at arm’s length above the south horizon at 1:00 p.m. (noon standard
time). Contrary to popular belief, the Sun is never straight overhead in
Ellensburg or anywhere else in the 48 contiguous states. The northernmost
portion of the world where the Sun can be directly overhead is 23.5 degrees
north latitude. In ancient times, the Sun was in the constellation Cancer the
crab on the first day of summer. Hence, 23.5 degrees north latitude has the
nickname "Tropic of Cancer". Because the Earth wobbles like a
spinning top, the Sun's apparent path through the sky changes slightly over
time. Now, the Sun is in the constellation Taurus the bull on the first day of
summer. However, citing the high cost of revising all of the science books,
geographers are not changing the name of 23.5 degrees north latitude to "Tropic
of Taurus". The first day of summer is often called the summer solstice.
However, astronomers refer to the summer solstice as the point in the sky in
which the Sun is at its highest point above the celestial equator. Thus, summer
starts when the Sun is at the summer solstice point. This year, that happens at
4:07 p.m.
Thursday: Saturn
is two and a half fists above the southwest horizon and Mars is two fists above
the west-southwest horizon at 11 p.m.
Friday: The
bright orangish star Arcturus is five and a half fists above the southwest
horizon at 11 p.m. Don’t confuse it with Saturn, a similarly colored object
much lower in the sky
The
positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically
accurate for the entire week.
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