The Ellensburg sky for the week of 7/28/12

Saturday: The Southern Delta Aquarid meteor shower peaks tonight and early tomorrow morning. Meteor showers are named after the constellation from which the meteors appear to originate. “Hi de hi de hi de hi”, these meteors appear to come from a point in Aquarius near the star Delta Aquarii, also known as Skat. Ho de ho de ho de ho, 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. (The singer Cab Calloway must have had an interest in this star.) 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. The best time to view the shower is after midnight between moonset and dawn.

Sunday: School has been out for over a month so it is time to start reviewing your geometric shapes. Let’s start with the right triangle that is a fist above the west-southwest horizon at 10 p.m. The bluish star Spica is at the right angle, in the lower left corner of the triangle. Saturn is a half a fist above Spica and Mars a fist to the right of Spica.

Monday: Jupiter, the bright star Aldebaran, the Hyades open star cluster, Venus, and a small special guest are low in the eastern morning sky this week. At 5 am, Venus, the brightest point of light in the sky, is two fists above the east horizon. Jupiter is about a fist and a half to the upper right of Venus. The Hyades open star cluster makes a small rightward-facing V to the lower right of Jupiter. The bright star Aldebaran is at the lowest point of the V although it is not actually a part of the Hyades cluster.

Tuesday: Most stars are so far away that they look like points of light, even through a telescope. But in 2006, Altair, one of our nearest neighbor stars, became the first main sequence to have a picture taken of its surface features. You can’t see those features with the naked eye. But you can see Altair nearly five fists above the southeast horizon at 11 p.m.

Wednesday: 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.

Thursday: 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. For the past year, the NASA probe called Dawn has been gathering data from 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/. For visual confirmation of Vesta, go outside at 4:30 am and look at the Hyades cluster through your binoculars. Vesta will be one of the dimmest points of light in the middle of the V, just above Theta 1 and Theta 2 Tauri, two stars of similar brightness lined up nearly one on top of the other in the bottom leg of the V.

Friday: Since you got up early yesterday to look for Vesta, you might as well get up early today to see one of the most recognizable constellations rise. Orion, with its 3-star belt and bright red shoulder star Betelgeuse, peeks up above the eastern horizon at 5 am. In fact, Betelgeuse is exactly one fist above due east at 5 a.m.

The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.

The Ellensburg sky for the week of 7/21/12

Saturday: The Southern Delta Aquarid meteor shower peaks for the next few nights and early mornings with the greatest concentration of meteors being visible next weekend. 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. The best time to view the shower is after midnight between moonset and dawn. 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: Altair, at one corner of the Summer Triangle, is four fists above the southeast horizon at 11 p.m. Altair is one of the closest bright stars, so close that fictional astronauts visited a planet orbiting Altair in the 1956 movie “Forbidden Planet”.

Monday: Hot enough for you? If not, astronomers using NASA’s Spitzer Space telescope think they have discovered a molten planet orbiting a star almost right next door on an astronomical scale – only 33 light years away. This planet is about two-thirds the diameter of Earth and is VERY close to its parent star – about 2% of the Earth-Sun distance. The star, GJ 436, is a dim red dwarf star. For more information about this discovery, read the NASA press release at http://goo.gl/9nY8w.

Tuesday: How is tonight’s west-southwest sky similar to a Johns Hopkins University classroom? Both are crowded with bright objects. Tonight at 10 p.m., the moon sits below a right triangle featuring the bluish star Spica, the orangish Saturn a half a fist above Spica, and the reddish Mars a fist to the right of Spica. Six weeks from today, one of Ellensburg’s “bright stars” will be lighting up a Johns Hopkins classroom.

Wednesday: 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 10:09 p.m. It looks like a bright light on a pole on the north ridge because is only about one degree above the horizon.

Thursday: If you want to show your loved ones a celestial sign that they should hang up their clothes, show them Brocchi's Cluster, commonly known as the Coat Hanger cluster because of its resemblance to an upside down coat hanger. The cluster is 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.

Friday: Hercules stands almost directly overhead at 10:30 this evening. Four moderately bright stars form a lopsided square that represents his body, while his head points southward.

The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.

The Ellensburg sky for the week of 7/14/12

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

Sunday: This morning at 4:30, the waning crescent moon will be in between Jupiter and Venus, one and a half to two fists above the east horizon. Throughout Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and central Asia, the Moon will actually line up with Jupiter, blocking it from viewers in those locations. This is called an occultation.

Monday: The long summer days remind us to take some time to safely observe the Sun. The best way to do that is to go to http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/ and watch the great images and videos that come from the Solar Dynamics Observer, or SDO for short. We are approaching a sunspot maximum scheduled to peak 2013. So what, you say? Sunspots and associated phenomena greatly influence the strength of solar flares. The strongest flares can affect satellites orbiting the Earth and even electronics on the Earth’s surface.

Tuesday: Say "Cheese". 162 years ago today, 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.

Wednesday: Spica, Saturn, and Mars make a skinny almost-right triangle low in the southwest sky at 10 p.m. Saturn is two fists above the southwest horizon. Spica, at the right angle of the triangle, is about a half a fist below it. Mars is about a fist and a half to the right of Spica.

Thursday: Pluto is not taking its “demotion” to dwarf planet lying down. Instead, it is proving to still be an interesting object to study by moving up on the list of solar system objects with moons.  Last week, astronomers announced the discovery of a fifth moon orbiting Pluto. This moon, with a diameter of about 10 miles, orbits in the same plane as Pluto’s other four moons. This indicates that a large object collided with the dwarf planet a long time ago, forming a collection of debris that didn’t have enough energy to leave the gravitational pull of Pluto. For more information about this discovery, go to http://goo.gl/zzYfH.

Friday: Take a two and a half hour walk. Too long, you say? Forty-three 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.

The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.

The Ellensburg sky for the week of 7/7/12

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. Hmmm. R.A.B. Regulus A. Black perhaps? Summer is a great time to read the books. Just seeing the movies is not good enough.

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: Fred and George Weasley are the best known twins in the Harry Potter universe. Mars, Saturn and the bright star Spica are hoping to be well-known triplets in the southwestern sky at 10 p.m. Spica is two fists above due southwest, Saturn is a half a fist above Spica, and Mars is about two fists to the right of the planetary pair.

Friday: Not every woman in the Black family is evil. Since this is Friday the 13^th, let’s focus on the good. 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