The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of February 29, 2020

Saturday:  Today is Leap Day – the day when everyone leaps for joy because we have an extra day to rest. Well, not everyone leaps for joy on Leap Day. Frederic, one of the main characters in the play (and movie) The Pirates of Penzance, wished Leap Day did not exist. As an infant, Frederic was apprenticed to a group of pirates until his 21^st birthday. He started to celebrate his freedom when he reached the end of his 21^st year. However, the pirates read the rules differently. Frederic was born on Leap Day – February 29. The pirates want him until the 21^st celebration of February 29 – when he is 84. Perhaps the pirates would have let Frederic go early if he explained the need for a Leap Day.

The Earth takes 365.24 days to orbit the Sun. Thus, each year, our calendar falls about a quarter of a day behind the Earth’s actual motion. Almost every four years, we add a day to the calendar to make up for that day. You may have noticed that this correction over compensates because 4 X 0.24 = 0.96, a little less than a full day. In order to correct for this over compensation, the years that mark the turn of the century are not leap years unless they are divisible by 400. 2000 was a leap year. 2100, 2200, and 2300 will not be leap years.

Sunday: The Seven Sisters are spending time with the Moon tonight. The Moon needs a lot of help with his homework and each sister has her academic specialty. At 7:00 p.m., they are about a fist to the upper right of the Moon, five and a half fists held upright and at arm’s length above the southwestern horizon. Oh, by the way, the Seven Sisters is another name for the Pleiades, an open star cluster of about 1,000 middle-aged, hot B-type stars.

Monday: 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. You can see Mars as a far-away target at 6:00 a.m. It is one and a half fists above the south-southeastern horizon.

Tuesday: Mars isn’t the only planet in the morning sky. Jupiter is the brightest planet in the morning sky, a little more than one fist above the southeastern horizon at 6:00 a.m.. Saturn is exactly one fist above due southeast at 6:00 a.m.

Wednesday: Venus is three fists above the western horizon at 7:00 p.m. You can use it to find Uranus. Using binoculars, put Venus in the lower right-hand portion of the field of view. Uranus will be near the center of your field of view. Over the next few days, Venus will move towards Uranus in the sky. They will be closest together on Saturday when Uranus will be about one thumb-width, or about two degrees, to the left of Venus.

Thursday: Late winter is a good time to see the thick band of the Milky Way galaxy. It arches high in the evening sky at 8:00 p.m., starting in the south by Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky. Climbing from Sirius through the bright star Capella, nearly straight overhead, it drops down toward M-shaped Cassiopeia in the northwest and through the bright star Deneb, near the north-northwestern horizon.

Friday: The CWU Physics Department and the College of the Sciences is hosting its monthly First Saturday planetarium show tomorrow from noon to 1:00 p.m. Dr. Cassie Fallscheer will give a tour of the sky focusing on star death and the spring sky. Shows are free and open to all ages. There will be a show at noon on the first Saturday of every month of the academic 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 February 22, 2020

Saturday: Tonight is a great night to look for the Big Dipper. Tomorrow will be a great night to look for the Big Dipper. In fact, every night for many centuries will be great nights to look for the Big Dipper. But the Big Dipper’s shape slowly changes over many, many, many, many centuries. (Have I reached my word count yet?) Tens of thousands of years ago, it didn’t look like a dipper and tens of thousands of years from now, it will no longer look like a dipper. For a short video simulation of the changing Big Dipper, go to http://goo.gl/df1yV. For a look at the current Dipper, face northeast at 8 p.m. The lowest star, Alkaid, is two and a half fists held upright and at arm's length above the horizon. 

Sunday: It’s getting dark. The last remnant of twilight has disappeared. Suddenly, you notice a large softly radiant pyramid of light in the western sky. The base of this ghostly triangle is along the west horizon and the peak stretches two or three fists above the horizon. It is 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. Look for the ghostly patch after twilight for the next few weeks.

Monday: Venus is three fists above the west-southwestern horizon at 6:30 p.m.

Tuesday: Do you see a hunter when you look at Orion, due south at 8:00 p.m.? The bright reddish star Betelgeuse, five fists above due south, and Bellatrix, the bright bluish-white star one fist to the right of Betelgeuse, are the broad shoulders of the hunter. The bright bluish-white star 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.

Wednesday: Saturn, Jupiter, and mars make a short line in the morning sky. Jupiter, the brightest of the three, is one fist above the southeastern horizon. Saturn is one fist to the lower left of Jupiter and Mars is one fist to the upper right of Jupiter.

Thursday: Are you lonesome tonight? Alphard in the constellation Hydra is. Also spelled Al Fard, Arabic for “the solitary one”, Alphard is in a region of the sky without any bright stars. Alphard should have a lot of friends. It is an orange giant star like better known stars such as Arcturus and Aldebaran. It pulsates, making it interesting to astro-seismologists. And it is on the flag of Brazil. There’s no reason for it to be lonely. Go gaze at your doorstep and picture it there, three and a half fists above due south at 11:00 p.m.

Friday: Two bright stars, Vega and Deneb, are hugging the northern horizon together at 11:00 p.m. Vega, the brighter of the two, is about a half a fist above the northeastern horizon. Supergiant Deneb to two and a half fists to the left of Vega, closer to due north.

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 February 15, 2020

Saturday:   The sky is so wondrous. It makes me want to sing. 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 southern horizon at 8:00 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, halfway between the Big Dipper and the horizon. Canis Major contains Sirius, the brightest star in the nighttime sky.

Sunday: Mercury is a little less than a fist above the western horizon at 6:00 p.m. The much brighter Venus is three fists above the southwestern horizon at this time.

Monday: This President’s Day, let’s remember Abraham Lincoln: 16^th president, country lawyer, man on the penny, vampire hunter, and astronomer. Vampire hunter? No. Astronomer? Well, maybe not an astronomer, but someone who used observational evidence from the sky to solve a problem. In 1858, Lincoln defended Duff Armstrong, a family friend who was accused of murder. The prosecution thought they had a strong case because their primary witnesses claimed to have observed the killing by the light of the nearly full moon. Let’s listen in on the trial courtesy of the 1939 film, Young Mr. Lincoln.

Lincoln: How’d you see so well?

Witness: I told you it was Moon bright, Mr. Lincoln.

Lincoln: Moon bright.

Witness: Yes.

(Dramatic pause as Lincoln reaches for something)

Lincoln: Look at this. Go on, look at it. It’s the Farmer’s Almanack (sic). You see what it says about the Moon. That the Moon… set at 10: 21, 40 minutes before the killing took place. So you see it couldn’t have been Moon bright, could it?

Lincoln used the known information about Moon rising and setting times for August 29, 1858 as evidence in a trial. This is one of the earliest uses of forensic astronomy. For more information about Lincoln’s “almanac trial”, go to http://goo.gl/r83q4X. 

Tuesday: “Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday dear Pluto. Happy Birthday to you.” On this day in 1930, Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto, at that time classified as the ninth planet. However, as astronomers started discovering a lot of similar objects in that part of the solar system, they realized that they had a classification crisis on their hands. Should everything in this region of the solar system be named a planet? Eventually the International Astronomical Union (IAU) reclassified Pluto and all future Pluto-like objects as dwarf planets. 

Wednesday: Jupiter is less than a half a fist to the left of the waning crescent Moon at 6:00 a.m. Saturn is a fist to the lower left of Jupiter, just above the southeastern horizon. 

Thursday: Clyde Tombaugh discovered the first planet 9. Will you discover the new Planet 9? You and thousands of others will have the opportunity to comb through images of the sky from NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). You’ll view short “flipbook” movies of the same patch of sky on different nights. Any point of light that moves could be Planet 9 or another undiscovered Solar System object. Read about how you can join the search for Planet 9 at https://goo.gl/D4PkCD. 

Friday: Waking up too early? Mars is waking up early, too. It rises at 4:00 a.m. By 5:00 a.m., it is nearly one fist above the southeastern horizon.

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.