The Ellensburg WA sky for the week of 1/30/16

Saturday: Winter is the best season for finding bright stars. And if you only want to set aside a few minutes, 10 p.m. tonight just might be the best time because the winter hexagon is due south. Starting at the bottom, find Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, two and a half fists above the south horizon. Going clockwise, Procyon (6^th brightest star visible from Washington state) is about two and a half fists to the upper left of Sirius. Pollux (12^th brightest) is about two and a half fists above Procyon. Capella (4^th brightest) is about two and a half fists to the upper right of Procyon and close to straight overhead. Going back to Sirius at the bottom, Rigel (5^th brightest) about two and a half fists to the upper right of Sirius. Aldebaran (9^th brightest) is about three fists above Rigel. Betelgeuse (7^th brightest) is in the center of the hexagon. Adhara (16^th brightest) is a little more than a fist below Sirius and Castor (17^th brightest) is right above Pollux. That’s nine of the 17 brightest stars visible in the northern United States in one part of the sky.

Sunday: Are you a morning person? Good, because you’ll see quite a show in the morning sky for the next two weeks. All five naked eye planes will be visible before sunrise. This week, the Moon moves among them, as well. This morning at 6:45, Jupiter is two and a half fists above the west-southwest horizon. Mars is joined by the moon, three fists above the south horizon. Saturn is two fists above the south-southeast horizon. The bright and reddish star called Antares is one fist to the lower right of Saturn. Venus, the brightest planet, is a little less than one fist above the southeast horizon. Mercury is a half a fist above the southeast horizon, to the lower left of Venus.

Monday: Tomorrow is Groundhog Day. If Punxsutawney Phil doesn’t see his shadow this morning, he is telling us that he follows the Chinese calendar and that spring starts early. On the Chinese calendar, equinoxes and solstices occur in the middle of their respective seasons. In order for the vernal equinox to occur in the middle of spring, spring must start on February 3 or 4, depending on the year. Thus, if Phil doesn’t see his shadow, legend is that spring will start on February 3 or 4 as on the Chinese calendar. If Phil sees his shadow, he is telling us he agrees with the western calendar and that there will be six more weeks of winter meaning spring will start near March 20.

Tuesday: “Oooo, they’re little runaways. Orion’s stars moved fast. Tried to make a getaway. Ooo-oo, they’re little runaways,” sang Bon Jovi in his astronomical hit “Runaway.  At least that’s what I hear when I listen to the song. After all, it fits the recently calculated trajectory of AE Aurigae, Mu Columbae, and 53 Arietis. Extrapolating the actual motion of these three stars back in time, they were all in the location of the star-forming region called the Orion Nebula a few million years ago. What kicked these stars out? Not paying rent? Excessive partying? No, it was simply gravitation interactions with near-by stars. Find out more about the eviction at http://goo.gl/UeLwKQ.

Wednesday: Jupiter is two and a half fists above the east-southeast horizon at 11 p.m.

Thursday: Are you interested in participating in astronomy research? You don’t need to go back to school. You don’t need to spend thousands of dollars getting a fake degree from an online university. The scientists working on the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, or HiRISE, camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter would like your input on which objects they should target for close-up pictures. While you may think the scientists are just trying to build interest in their project by having people look at pretty pictures, there is a real scientific benefit to having many eyes searching for interesting targets. There aren’t enough scientists to carefully inspect all of the low power images. And surprisingly, computers are not nearly as effective as people in making nuanced judgments of images. So, go to http://www.uahirise.org/ and click on the HiWish button. You’ll be on your way to suggesting close-up targets for NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Friday: The good news is the days are getting longer and the nights are getting shorter. The better news is the farther north you go in the United States, the longer the days get. Here in Ellensburg, there is one and a half more hours of daylight than on the first day of winter. In the southern part of the US, there is only 35 more minutes of sunlight. On the North Pole, the day length has gone from zero hours to zero hours in the past month and a half. If you’d like to have your own fun with day lengths and other time questions, go to http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/sunrise.html.

The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week. For up to date information about the night sky, go to http://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/planner.cfm.

The Ellensburg WA sky for the week of 1/23/16

Saturday: Do you hear the wolves howling in the wintertime? Native Americans in the northeast United States did because they called the January full Moon the Full Wolf Moon. At 7 p.m. tonight, the open star cluster called the Beehive Cluster is a half a fist to the left of the Moon.

Sunday: Are you a morning person? Good, because you’ll see quite a show in the morning sky for the next three weeks. All five naked eye planes will be visible before sunrise. This week, the Moon joins them, as well. This morning at 7:15, Jupiter is two and a half fists above the southwest horizon. Mars is three fists above the south horizon. Saturn it two fists above the south-southeast horizon. The bright and reddish star called Antares is one fist to the lower right of Saturn. Venus, the brightest planet, is more than one fist above the southeast horizon. Mercury is a half a fist above the southeast horizon, to the lower left of Venus. Over the next few days, Mercury will move more out of the glare of the Sun and be easier to find in the morning sky.

Monday: Draco Malfoy makes an appearance in all seven books of the Harry Potter series. Perhaps you’ve heard of these. But, the constellation Draco the dragon makes an appearance in the sky every night. It is a circumpolar constellation as viewed from Ellensburg meaning it never goes below the horizon. The head of the dragon is one fist above due north at 9:30 p.m. Eltanin, the brightest star in the constellation, is at the lower left-hand corner of the trapezoid-shaped head of Draco.

Tuesday: About a century ago, the search for “Planet X” was motivated by irregularities in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune. It turned out the “irregularities” were simply errors but the search for Planet X led to the discovery of Pluto in 1930. Last week, Caltech astronomers published their hypothesis that irregularities in the orbits of some small, icy bodies in the outer Solar System can be explained by the presence of a planet about ten times the mass of Earth. This planet, nicknamed Planet Nine, orbits the Sun about 20 times farther out than Planet Eight, better known as Neptune. Planet Seven, also known as Uranus, is four fists above due southwest at 7 p.m. You’ll need binoculars to see it. It is on the right side of a side of a set of six stars that looks like a wedge. Read or listen to http://goo.gl/HlZPYy to learn more about Planet Nine.

Wednesday: Jupiter is a half a fist above the Moon at 11 p.m.

Thursday: Currently, the brightest star in the night sky is Sirius in the constellation Canis Major. It’s two and a half fists above the south horizon at 10:30 p.m. One fist below Sirius is the blue giant star Adhara. Currently it is less than one tenth the brightness of Sirius as seen from Earth. But 4.7 million years ago, Adhara was a lot closer to Earth and shined ten times brighter than Sirius.

Friday: Let’s review three important sets of three cats. There’s Josie, Valerie, and Melody of Josie and the Pussycats. Felix, Tom, and Sylvester from old time cartoons. And, if you want to get away from the mind-numbing effects of television, there’s Leo the lion, Leo Minor, and Lynx in the night sky. Leo is by far the most prominent of these three constellations. Its brightest star called Regulus is nearly four fists above the east-southeast horizon at 11 p.m. The backwards question mark-shaped head of Leo is above Regulus and the trapezoid-shaped body is to the left of it. Leo Minor consists of a few dim stars right above Leo. Pretty wimpy. The long dim constellation spans from just above Leo Minor to nearly straight overhead. You and fellow stargazers won’t need to wear a long tail or ears for hats to enjoy these stellar cats.

The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week. For up to date information about the night sky, go to http://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/planner.cfm.

The Ellensburg WA sky for the week of 1/16/16

Saturday: Who can forget that memorable song by Three Dog Constellations Night, “The sky is black. The stars are white. Together we learn to find the light.” Well, maybe it didn’t go like that. Which is good. Because not all stars are white. Most stars are too dim to notice a color. But, two of the stars in the constellation Orion provide a noticeable contrast with each other. Betelgeuse, five fists held upright and at arm’s length above the south horizon at 10:30 p.m. is a red giant. Rigel, the bright star about two fists to the lower right of Betelgeuse, is a blue giant.

By the way, the three dog constellations are Canis Major, the greater dog, found one and a half fists to the lower left of Orion; Canis Minor, the lesser dog, found two and a half fists to the left of Betelgeuse; and Canes Venatici, the hunting dogs, found low in the northeast sky. Canis Major contains Sirius, the brightest star in the nighttime sky.

Sunday: Are you a morning person? Good, because you’ll see quite a show in the morning sky for the next month. All five naked eye planes will be visible before sunrise. This morning at 7:15, Jupiter is three fists above the southwest horizon. Mars is three fists above the south horizon. Venus, the brightest planet, is more than one fist above the southeast horizon. Saturn is a fist to the upper right of Venus. Mercury is just above the east-southeast horizon. Over the next few days, Mercury will move more out of the glare of the Sun and be easier to find in the morning sky.

Monday: The moon is spending a fun-filled Monday night under seven sisters. I hope it doesn’t get crushed. At 8 p.m., the moon is one fist below the open star cluster called the Pleiades, or the seven sisters. They stay close together the whole night, finally setting at about 3 a.m. tomorrow.

Tuesday: If you don’t want to get up early in the morning, you can still look for Jupiter one and a half fists above the east horizon at 11 p.m.

Wednesday: Have you ever planned a vacation to a place because it was supposedly the up-and-coming locale? Then, when the vacation time finally arrives, you find out the place doesn’t live up to its billing? A little over three years ago, astronomers discovered that the star Tau Ceti, one of our closest neighbors at 12 light years away, has five planets. They claimed two of the planets are in the so-called habitable zone where the temperature is just right for having liquid water. Time for a va-ca-tion! Well, not so fast. A new model indicates that one of the planets is in the habitable zone only is you make very generous assumptions. And the other probably moved into the habitable zone fairly recently. In any case, you’ll want to do some research before you travel there. Tau Ceti is two and a half fists above the south-southwest horizon at 7 p.m. For more information about the discovery, go to http://goo.gl/mVdncK.

Thursday: You never see a giraffe on the ground in Ellensburg. But you can look for one every night in the sky. The constellation Camelopardalis the giraffe is circumpolar from Ellensburg’s latitude of 47 degrees north meaning it is always above the horizon. Don’t expect to be overwhelmed by the appearance of the stars in Camelopardalis. The brightest star in the constellation appears only about half as bright as the dimmest star in the Big Dipper. However, the actual luminosities of the three brightest stars in Camelopardalis are very high, each at least 3,000 times more luminous than the Sun. Alpha Camelopardalis, a mind boggling 600,000 times more luminous than the Sun, is seven fists above the northern horizon at 9 p.m.

Friday: 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.

The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week. For up to date information about the night sky, go to http://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/planner.cfm.

The Ellensburg WA sky for the week of 1/9/16

Saturday: How do you study the life cycle of a dog? Easy. Get a dog from the animal shelter, care for it for 15 years and study it. How do you study the life cycle of a star? Easy. Pick a star, watch it for a few billion years, and…. Wait a minute. Astronomers can’t observe something for a few billion years. Instead, they study stars that are at different points in their long life cycle and piece together the information from those different stars. What they do is like studying a one-year-old dog for a few minutes, then studying a different two-year-old dog for a few minutes, and so on. The sky in and near the constellation Orion provides an example of four objects at different points of star life.

First, find Rigel, the bright star in the lower right corner of the constellation Orion. This star, rapidly burning its fuel for a high energy but short-lived existence, is three and a half fists held upright and at arm’s length above due south at 10 p.m. It was not, is not, and never will be like our Sun. However, about one fist up and to the left are the three objects of Orion’s sword holder. The middle “star” is really a star-forming region called the Orion nebula. There you’ll find baby Suns. Now, look about two fists to the right and one fist down from Rigel. You should be looking at a star that is about one tenth as bright as Rigel but still the brightest in its local region. The third star to the right of that star is Epsilon Eridani, the most Sun-like close and bright star. Betelgeuse, in the upper left corner of Orion, is a star at the end of its life that started out life a bit larger than the Sun.

Sunday: Do you see a hunter when you look at Orion? Betelgeuse and the bright star one fist to the right of it are the broad shoulders of the hunter. Rigel and Saiph, the bright star to the left of Rigel, represent the knees.  The Maya saw the equilateral triangle formed by Rigel, Saiph, and the left-most belt star as the “Three Stones of the Hearth”. The Orion Nebula is in the center of the hearth and it represents the flame, called K’ak.

Monday: Star Wars: The Force Awakens with its strangely shaped light saber is showing in theaters. The awakened force of a star is showing in the Orion B molecular cloud complex. When stars form, gas and dust is gravitationally pulled in and jets of energized gas shoot out its poles. The Hubble Space Telescope has taken images of twin jets that resemble Darth Maul’s double bladed light saber in Star Wars Episode 1. For more information about this star, along with more marginally accurate references to Star Wars, go to http://goo.gl/zOyZYb.

Tuesday: Jupiter is one fist above the east horizon

Wednesday: January is the coldest month of the year so it is time to turn up the furnace. Fornax the furnace is one fist above due south at 7 p.m.

Thursday: Are you a morning person? Good, because you’ll see quite a show in the morning sky from January 20 to February 20. All five naked eye planes will be visible before sunrise. Even now, you can see four of the five naked eye planets. Jupiter is three fists above the southwest horizon. Mars is three fists above the south horizon. Venus, the brightest planet, is more than one fist above the southeast horizon. Saturn is a half a fist to the upper right of Venus. In about a week, Mercury will move out of the glare of the Sun and join it’s fellow planets in the morning sky.

Friday: Sirius, the brightest star in the nighttime sky, is two and a half fists above due south at 11:15 p.m.

The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week. For up to date information about the night sky, go to http://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/planner.cfm.