The Ellensburg WA sky for the week of 6/1/19

Saturday:  The CWU Physics Department is hosting its monthly First Saturday planetarium show today from noon to 1 p.m. The CWU Astronomy Club will give a series of short shows about southern constellations, Mars, and the Moon. The show is free and open to all ages. There will be a show on the first Saturday of every month of the school year hosted by different CWU astronomers and astronomy educators. The CWU Lydig Planetarium is room 101 in Science Phase II, just off the corner of 11th and Wildcat Way, H-11 on the campus map found at https://www.cwu.edu/facility/campus-map.

Sunday: Cygnus the swan flies tonight. Deneb, the brightest star in the constellation, whose name means “tail” in Arabic, is two and a half fists held upright and at arm's length above the northeast horizon at 10 p.m. Cygnus’ wings make a vertical line one half a fist to the right of Deneb. Its head, marked by the star Albireo, is two fists to the right of Deneb. While Deneb is at the tail of Cygnus, it is at the head of the line of bright stars. It is 160,000 times more luminous than the Sun making it one of the brightest stars in the galaxy. It does not dominate our night sky because it is 2,600 light years away, one of the farthest naked eye stars. If Deneb were 25 light years away, it would shine as bright as a crescent moon. Compare that to Vega, which is 25 light years away. Vega is three and a half fists above the east-northeast horizon at this time.

Monday: Jupiter is one fist above the southeast horizon at 11 p.m.

Tuesday: The month of June is named after Juno, the queen of the Roman gods and the mythological protector of the Roman state. In ancient Rome, the month began when the crescent moon was first seen in the evening sky from Capitoline Hill in Rome. If we still started months this way, June would start on a different day each year. This year, the new Moon is June 3 so the first day of the month would be today when the crescent moon is about 4% illuminated. Look for it a half a fist above the west-northwest horizon at 9:30 p.m. The planet Mercury is less than a fist to the right of the Moon.

Wednesday: Looking for a wet and wild vacation spot? So is NASA. That is why they are going to land the the Mars 2020 rover in Jezero Crater, which many astronomers think held an ancient lake. They hope the rover will find minerals that form in the presence of water and maybe even fossilized signs of life. For more information about the landing site, go to https://tinyurl.com/yxt6f39b. Tonight, Mars is about a fist to the lower right of the Moon at 10 p.m.

Thursday: The bright bluish star Spica is three fists above due south at 9:30 p.m.

Friday: As the weather warms up, people start thinking about swimming in a nice cool body of water. Recently, astronomers have discovered evidence an ocean about 20 miles beneath the surface of Saturn’s moon Enceladus. NASA’s Cassini probes measured variations in how the moon’s gravity pulled on the orbiting spacecraft. These variations can be explained by a large amount of liquid water under one section of the ice because liquid water is denser than an equal volume of ice. While you need a very large telescope to see Enceladus, Saturn is about a half a fist above the southeast horizon at midnight.

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

The Ellensburg WA sky for the week of 5/25/19

Saturday:  In 1979, the group Foreigner recorded the song “Head Games”. They could have been singing about the constellations Hercules and Ophiuchus when they said “head games, it’s just you and me baby, head games, I can’t take it anymore” because the heads of these two constellations have been right next to each other in the nighttime sky for all of human history. And just to make it easy for you, a star that bears an Arabic name that means “the head” represents each head. In Hercules, it's Ras Algethi (head of the kneeler); in Ophiuchus, Ras Alhague (head of the serpent charmer). At 11 p.m., Ras Alhague, the brighter of the two, is three and a half fists held upright and at arm’s length above the east-southeast horizon. Ras Algethi is about a half a fist to the upper right of Ras Alhague.

Sunday: In 1982, the British group Bow Wow Wow first sang, “I Want Candy”. In May 2019, NASA finally granted that wish by releasing images of Mars’ moon Phobos looking like candy.  The thermal imaging camera on NASA’s long lived Odyssey orbiter took a series of images of the full phase of Phobos. The resulting composite, looking like a many layered jaw-breaker, shows how the temperature varies throughout the small moon. This temperature distribution, in turn, can help astronomers determine what the moon is made of. For more about this yummy treat, go to https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7398. Mars is one and a half fists above the west-northwest horizon at 9:30 p.m.

Monday: The questions who, what, where, and when can only be asked with a “W”. At 10:30 p.m., the W-shaped constellation Cassiopeia is about one and a half fists above due north. The middle star in the W was used as a navigation reference point during the early space missions. The American astronaut Gus Grissom nicknamed the star Navi, his middle name Ivan spelled backwards. After he died in the Apollo 1 fire, the star name was kept as a memorial.

Tuesday: Ceres is in opposition tonight. That doesn’t mean it refuses to eat its vegetables. It means that Ceres is on the opposite side of the Earth as the Sun is so it is highest in the sky during the darkest part of the night. Also, it is visible with binoculars for the entire night. Go outside at 11 p.m. and find Jupiter one fist above the southeast horizon. The bright reddish star Antares is about a fist to the right of Jupiter. Put Antares at the bottom of your field of view. There will be a star right above Antares, one in the center of your field of view, and one near the upper left portion of your field of view that are about the same brightness as each other. Move that third star to the bottom of your field of view. There will be a star to the upper right and a star near the center of the field of view that are about the same brightness as the bottom star. Ceres is to the upper right of the star at center of the field of view. Try to find this object for the next few nights. You’ll know you have the right object if it moves a little bit to the right each night.

Wednesday: Altair, the lowest star in the Summer Triangle, is one fist above due east at 11 p.m.

Thursday: The Moon is about a half a fist above the east horizon at 4:30 a.m. But what if you just want to sleep in? Easy, check out the Moon online. One of the best live Moon maps is found at https://quickmap.lroc.asu.edu/. See the most up to date lunar images at fantastic resolution, down to about two meters. You could easily tell the difference between a car and a minivan on the moon.

Friday: The CWU Physics Department is hosting its monthly First Saturday planetarium show tomorrow from noon to 1 p.m. The CWU Astronomy Club will give a series of short shows about southern constellations, Mars, and the Moon. The show is free and open to all ages. There will be a show on the first Saturday of every month of the school year hosted by different CWU astronomers and astronomy educators. The CWU Lydig Planetarium is room 101 in Science Phase II, just off the corner of 11th and Wildcat Way, H-11 on the campus map found at https://www.cwu.edu/facility/campus-map.

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

The Ellensburg WA sky for the week of 5/18/19

Saturday:  Every year near the summer solstice, the orbital path of the International Space Station (ISS) is aligned with the Earth’s day-night terminator line, meaning the ISS is illuminated by the Sun for its entire orbit. Since the ISS just takes about 90 minutes to orbit the Earth, it will be visible about five times a night from many locations. For more information about the ISS’s orbit, go to https://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/watch-international-space-station/. To see the ISS, go outside tonight (in Washington state) and look to the south-southeast at 9:35 pm, 11:10 pm, 12:47 am, 2:24 am, and 4:02 am.

Sunday: Are you thirsty. I’ll wait while you get some water. I will NOT wait while Corvus the crow gets you some water. The Greco-Roman god Apollo made this mistake. He sent Corvus the crow to get some water in the cup known as Crater. Some figs distracted Corvus and he waited for them to ripen so he could eat them. When Corvus got back late, Apollo put Corvus and Crater in the sky with the gently tipping cup just out of the reach of the perpetually thirsty crow. Corvus is a trapezoid-shaped constellation about two fists held upright and at arm’s length above due south at 9:30 p.m. Crater is just to the right of Corvus.

Monday: Jupiter is less than a half a fist to the left of the nearly full Moon at 5 a.m. The latest plan is for humans to return to the Moon by 2024. Watch this video to get excited about the upcoming trip https://youtu.be/vl6jn-DdafM.

Tuesday: You can set your watch tonight by carefully observing Navi, the center star in the W-shaped Cassiopeia. It will be due north at exactly 10:02 p.m. However, another star in Cassiopeia is causing astronomers to doubt whether or not they can use neutron stars as the most precise known clocks in the universe. Neutron stars have such a precise spin rate that they are used to set clocks on Earth. However, in 2013, astronomers using NASA’s Swift x-ray telescope noticed that the neutron star called 1E 2259+586 exhibited a spin glitch that that had never seen before. The spin rate of about eight times a minute decreased by 2.2 millionths of a second. Read more about this at http://goo.gl/C4V8R1. In 2016, astronomers using NASA’s Swift x-ray telescope observed the slowest rotating neutron star, once every 6.5 hours. What is it with using a telescope named Swift to make discoveries about something slowing? Maybe that slow developing question will be answered at https://tinyurl.com/y6ag6g7c.  

Wednesday: Saturn is about a half a fist to the upper left of the Moon at 5 a.m.

Thursday: Are you thirsty when you get up in the morning? I know you are not waiting for Corvus. That’s okay because the Big Dipper is positioned to hold water in the morning sky. Look three fists above the northwest horizon at 4:30 a.m. You’ll see three stars that make a bent handle and four stars that make a cup.

Friday: Are you up at 1:59 a.m., looking due north and thinking you see a UFO coming to take you away? That's no UFO. It's the bright star Capella, a circumpolar star that never goes below the horizon as viewed from Ellensburg.

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

The Ellensburg WA sky for the week of 5/11/19

Saturday:  You know Metis and Thebe and Adrastea and Amalthea. Io and Ganymede and Callisto and Europa. But do you recall? There are 79 Jovian moons in all.  Just 60 years ago, Jupiter was thought to have only 12 moons. But, astronomers are red-nosed with delight that the advent of supersensitive electronic cameras has caused the number of discovered moons to rapidly increase. Jupiter’s 79 moons range in size from Ganymede, with a diameter of 5,262 kilometers, to numerous moons with diameters of only one kilometer. Our moon has a diameter of 3,475 kilometers. (One kilometer is 0.62 miles.) Saturn is second place in the moon race with 62. Uranus is next with 27. Then comes Neptune with 14, Mars with 2, and Earth with 1. Even dwarf planets have moons. Pluto has 5, Eris has 1, Haumea has 2, and Makemake has 1. Eris is an outer solar system object that was discovered in 2005 and named in September of 2006. Because astronomers thought it was larger than Pluto, people called it the tenth planet for a while. (More recent measurements show Eris to be a little smaller in diameter than Pluto.) Haumea, the newest dwarf planet with a moon, was discovered in 2004 and officially named a dwarf planet on September 17, 2008. Go to http://goo.gl/Xkoeq for more information about Solar System moons.

Sunday: So you think your mother has problems on Mother’s Day because she had you as you as a child? Her mother issues can’t be as bad as Cassiopeia’s issues. First, she was chained to a chair for boasting about her beauty. Second, she has to revolve around the North Star night after night. Third, her daughter Andromeda was nearly killed by a sea monster. Look for poor Cassiopeia about one and a half fists held upright and at arm’s length above the north horizon at 10 p.m. Cassiopeia looks like a stretched out “W”.

Monday: Give me an “M”. Give me a “3”. What does that spell? “M3.” “Big deal,” you say. It was a big deal to French comet hunter Charles Messier (pronounced Messy A). M3 was the 3^rd comet look-alike that Messier catalogued in the late 1700s. M3 is a globular cluster, a cluster of over 100,000 stars that is 32,000 light years away. It is too dim to be seen with the naked eye but is fairly easy find with binoculars. First find Arcturus six fists above the southeast horizon at 11 p.m. Move your binoculars up one binocular field of view so two stars of nearly identical brightness are in your field of view. When the top star is in the lower left part of your field of view, there should be a fuzzy patch near the center of your field of view. This is M3.

Tuesday: Jupiter is a half a fist above the southeast horizon at 11:30 p.m.

Wednesday: Spica is less than one fist below the Moon, about three fists above the south horizon at 11 p.m.

Thursday: Mars’ two small moons, Phobos and Deimos, are not visible in typical backyard telescopes. But they are an interesting study. The prevailing view among most astronomers is that they are captured asteroids. That makes sense given Mars’ proximity to the asteroid belt. But recent findings by European astronomers indicate that Phobos is very porous and made of material similar to the surface of Mars. This implies that Phobos may consist of chunks of Martian debris that was blasted off by numerous impacts and gravitationally bound together. Unfortunately, the Russian Phobos-Grunt probe launched late 2011 to collect material from Phobos crashed to Earth after malfunctioning. For more information about this recent model of Phobos’ formation, go to http://goo.gl/8sw3rM. For more information about Mars, look about two fists above the west horizon at 9:30 p.m.

Friday: At 5 a.m., Jupiter is a fist and a half above the south-southwest horizon, Saturn is two fists above due south, and Venus is just peeking up above the east horizon, nearly lost in the glare of the rising Sun.

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

The Ellensburg WA sky for the week of 5/4/19

Saturday:  The CWU Physics Department is hosting its monthly First Saturday planetarium show today from noon to 1 p.m. STEM Teaching major McKenzie Bailey will give a show called Solar System Travels. You will learn about a few key missions to explore the Solar System. The show is free and open to all ages. There will be a show on the first Saturday of every month of the school year hosted by different CWU astronomers and astronomy educators. The CWU Lydig Planetarium is room 101 in Science Phase II, just off the corner of 11th and Wildcat Way, H-11 on the campus map found at https://www.cwu.edu/facility/campus-map.

Sunday: The Eta Aquarid meteor shower peaks tonight and tomorrow morning. But since this meteor shower has a fairly broad peak range, there will be many more meteors than in the typical pre-dawn sky throughout the month of May. Meteor showers are named after the constellation from which the meteors appear to originate. The meteors appear to come from a point in the constellation Aquarius near the star Eta. This point is about one fist held upright and at arm’s length above the east horizon at 4 a.m. The Moon is just past the new Moon phase so the sky will be dark for most of the night. The Eta Aquarid meteors slam into the Earth at about 40 miles per second. They often leave a long trail. The Eta Aquarid meteors are small rocks that have broken off Halley’s Comet. For more information about the Eta Aquarids, go to http://earthsky.org/?p=158833.

Monday: Mother’s Day is about a week away. What are you going to get her? Get her a Gem(ma). The star Gemma, also known as Alphekka, is the brightest star in the constellation Corona Borealis, the Northern Crown. Gemma, Latin for jewel is the central gemstone for the crown. It is four fists above due east at 10 p.m.

Tuesday: Mars is about a half a fist to the upper right of the crescent Moon in the western sky tonight.

Wednesday: Jupiter is about a half a fist above the southeast horizon at midnight. By 5 a.m., it is all the way over in the southwestern sky, a little less than two fists above the horizon. Saturn is two fists above the south horizon.

Thursday: Read carefully now. The daytime is bright and the nighttime is dark. Place the Earth and its atmosphere in fairly close orbit around any star and the daytime rule would still apply. But put the Earth and its atmosphere in orbit around a star at the center of a globular cluster and the night sky would never be dark. Astronomers estimate that the sky would be 10 to 20 times brighter than the current sky when the Moon is full. One of the brightest globular clusters, M3, is seven fists above due south at 11:30 p.m. It is nearly one and a half fists to the upper right of the bright orangeish star Arcturus. It will look like a fuzzy patch in your binoculars. For a hypothetical view of what the night sky would look like at the center of this or a similar globular cluster, go to https://tinyurl.com/yyp88w7x.

Friday: This weekend, celebrate Mother’s Day with the big mom of the sky, Virgo. Ancient Greeks and Romans associated this portion of the sky with their own goddess of the harvest, either Demeter (Greeks) or Ceres (Roman). Demeter was the mother of Persephone and Ceres was the mother of Proserpina. According to myth, each of these daughters was abducted causing their mothers great grief. The first star in Virgo rises in the afternoon. Spica, the bright bluish star in the constellation rises at 7:00 and is three fists above the south-southeast horizon at 10 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 https://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/planner.cfm.