The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of April 25, 2020

Saturday: As the rock group Journey once thought of singing, “Wheel in the sky keeps on turnin’. Know where the Dipper’ll be tomorrow.” Every night, the Big Dipper and Cassiopeia make a wheel in the sky that turns around the North Star in a counter clockwise direction. Every year on April 25 at 10:00 p.m., the Big Dipper is straight overhead and W-shaped Cassiopeia is low on the northern horizon. Every year on April 26 at 10:00 p.m., the Big Dipper is straight overhead and W-shaped Cassiopeia is low on the northern horizon. Every year on April 27 at 10:00 p.m., the Big Dipper is straight overhead and W-shaped Cassiopeia is low on the northern horizon. Every year on April 28 at 10:00 p.m., well, you get the idea. Of course, there are subtle charges in the position from night to night. Each northern constellation moves about one degree counterclockwise from one night to the next. But this is not going to change their position in the sky drastically over a few days. So, if you know where the Big Dipper is tonight, you DO know where it’ll be tomorrow. If you are really struggling to understand this concept, Don’t Stop Believin’ in yourself. Just keep studying Faithfully.

Sunday: Venus is at its brightest and is less than one fist held at arm’s length to the right of the Moon at 9:00 p.m. These objects are our closest celestial neighbors. One hundred years ago tonight, the astronomers Heber Curtis and Harlow Shapley were debating the distances of some of our farthest neighbors: galaxies. Curtis argued that the universe consisted of many galaxies millions of light years away. Shapley thought that the spiral structures seen in telescopes were actually a part of the Milky Way. They also had different views on the size of the Milky Way. Learn more about their debate, called the Great Debate, at https://stardate.org/radio/program/2020-04-24. Learn more about the Milky Way by watching the center of it rise over the southeastern horizon at about 1:00 a.m.

Monday: Are you getting bored with our Solar System? Looking to move but don’t like the available options? In 2018, astronomers announced the discovery of a system of three Super-Earths orbiting a star located only 100 light-years away. Of course, we have no way of travelling that far yet. But, you can dream. And your dreams should involve two of the planets being in the size range in which planets could be either rocky like Earth or gas planets like Neptune. Also, no need to dress warm because all three of the planets likely have surface temperatures over 400 degrees Celsius (760 degrees Fahrenheit). Once the James Webb Space Telescope is operational in about 2022, it will be able to study the atmosphere of these planets. For more information and to start planning your trip, go to https://goo.gl/eSpmJx. 

Tuesday: The early modern astronomer Johannes Kepler wrote about the “music of the spheres”, exploring the relationship between planetary orbits and musical intervals. It turns out there is no actual relationship. On the other hand, Italian pianist and composer Giovanni Renzo gets inspiration from astronomy videos and photos from around the world to put on the Cosmic Concert. Original music and videos will flow together to form one coherent work of art. Listen and watch the concert starting at today noon Pacific Daylight Time by going to 

https://astronomerswithoutborders.org/gam2020-programs/astroarts/5376-cosmic-concert-2020.html. 

Wednesday:  An asteroid the size of a small town will pass within six million kilometers (four million miles) of the Earth at about 3:00 a.m., Pacific Daylight Time (6:00 Eastern Daylight Time) this morning. It will be too dim to be seen with the naked eye or binoculars. But it will be within the range of 8-inch telescopes. And the Virtual Telescope Project in Rome will host a free online viewing. For more information, go to

https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/asteroid-52768-1998-or2-april-2020-how-to-see.

Thursday: Mars is exactly one and a half fists above due southeast at 5:00 a.m. Saturn is two fists to the upper right of Mars and the very bright Jupiter is a half a fist to the right of Saturn.

Friday: The CWU campus is closed. But astronomy learning lives on! The Physics Department and the College of the Sciences is hosting a First Saturday VIRTUAL planetarium show tomorrow from noon to 1:00 p.m. CWU professor Bruce Palmquist will give a tour of interesting objects to observe with binoculars. He will use the browser-based Worldwide Telescope program found at http://worldwidetelescope.org/webclient/. There will be a virtual planetarium show on the first Saturday of every month for the rest of the school year. Stay at home, practice good physical distancing, and visit https://cwu.zoom.us/s/94923725113 using the password 092888 to participate in the Virtual tour.

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 April 18, 2020

Saturday:  This week is International Dark Sky Week. Check out the schedule of events at https://idsw.darksky.org/, including many presentations that are broadcast live so you can interact with the presenter.  But that doesn’t mean that we can ignore our obligation to minimize stray light for the next 51 weeks. Lights that are aimed upward illuminate the atmosphere and obscure dim objects. Having too much light shining where it shouldn’t is considered light pollution. And just like other forms of pollution, light pollution can be hazardous to our health and the health of other animals. That’s right. Harmful. Watch this episode of SciShow for more information: https://youtu.be/_nlFcEj41Xk.  

Sunday: Remember the old saying: April showers bring… meteors. The Lyrid meteor shower peak starts late tonight with the peak of the peak coming early Wednesday morning. The meteors appear to come from a point to the right of the bright bluish star Vega in the constellation Lyra the lyre. This point is about three fists held upright and at arm’s length above the east-northeast horizon at midnight tonight and close to straight overhead near dawn. The best time to look is just before dawn since that is when the radiant, or point from which the meteors appear to come, is high in the sky. This year, the Moon is near the New Moon phase so it won’t be around to obscure the dimmer meteors. Typically, this is one of the least interesting major meteor showers of the year. However, it is also one of the most unpredictable. As recently as 1982, there were 90 meteors visible during a single hour. In addition, the Lyrid meteor shower has historical interest because it was one of the first ones observed. Chinese records say “stars fell like rain” in the shower of 687 B.C. As your 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. For more information, go to http://earthsky.org/?p=158735.

Monday: Venus is nearly three fists above the western horizon at 9:00 p.m. It is the only planet visible in the evening sky because Jupiter does not rise until about 2:30 a.m.

Tuesday: The Space Shuttles have been retired. But NASA is still making plans about the future of space flight. Here is a small NASA poster summarizing the future of American Human spaceflight: https://goo.gl/Gd3q9q. It is interesting to compare the sizes of these real spaceships to the dozens of fictional spacecraft summarized on a poster found at http://goo.gl/F95aEL. Next time you are in Seattle, go see the Full Fuselage Space Shuttle Trainer at The Museum of Flight (http://www.museumofflight.org/).

Wednesday: While you are up looking at the Lyrid meteor shower, check out the naked eye planets, as well. At 5:00 a.m., bright Jupiter is about one and a half fists above the south-southeastern horizon. Saturn is a half a fist to the left of Jupiter and Mars is about one and a half fists to the lower left of Saturn.

Thursday: Do people think you have a magnetic personality? The star Cor Caroli understands how you feel. Cor Caroli has one of the strongest magnetic fields among main sequence stars similar to our Sun. This strong magnetic field is thought to produce large sunspots that cause the brightness of Cor Caroli to vary. Cor Caroli is nearly straight overhead at midnight.

Friday: The Moon and two open star clusters, the Pleiades and the Hyades, make a triangle low in the western sky at 9:00 p.m. The 100 million year old Pleiades cluster is less than a fist to the upper right of the Moon. The 600 million year old Hyades cluster is one first to the upper left of the Moon.

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 April 11, 2020

Saturday:  Most people reading this are used to seeing the Northern Hemisphere sky. What is it worth to you to see some highlights of the Southern Hemisphere sky? To see the brightest radio source in the sky? The grandest globular cluster? All it will cost you is a late night. At 1:30 am Pacific Daylight Time Sunday, the Sydney (Australia) Observatory Education Program Producer will give a telescopic tour of the southern sky over Facebook Live. You don’t need a facebook account to join. Just go th https://astronomerswithoutborders.org/gam2020-programs/online/5389-southern-sky-gems-facebook-live.html for more information.

Sunday: The Lyrid meteor shower peak starts next Sunday. But there will be increased meteor activity in the vicinity of the constellation Lyra until then. The meteors appear to come from a point to the right of the bright bluish star Vega in the constellation Lyra the lyre. This point is about three fists held upright and at arm’s length above the east-northeast horizon at midnight and close to straight overhead near dawn. Go to https://earthsky.org/?p=4478 for more information.

Monday: “Lately, I’ve been, I’ve been losing sleep. Dreaming about the things that we could be. But baby, I’ve been, I’ve been praying hard, said no more counting dollars. We’ll be counting 9,096 stars, yeah we’ll be counting 9,096 stars.” Luckily, artistic judgment prevailed over scientific precision in the OneRepublic hit “Counting Stars”. According to the Yale Bright Star Catalog, there are 9,096 stars visible to the naked eye across the entire sky if you are observing from a very dark site. In the northern United States, where a part of the sky is never visible, that number drops to about 6,500. In the middle of a small city at mid-latitudes, like Ellensburg, that number drops to a few hundred. No wonder someone has been losing sleep. Learn more about the star count at http://goo.gl/nt8d80.

Tuesday: The Moon will be passing beneath a line-up of Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars over the next three days. This morning at 5:30 a.m., Jupiter is less than a fist to the upper right of the Moon. Saturn is a half a fist to the left of Jupiter and Mars is a fist to the lower left of Saturn.

Wednesday: In this busy world, it is important to know what time it is. We have many devices that give us the time. A phone. A computer. A watch. But who has time to build a phone, computer or even a watch. Not you. But everyone has enough time to build a simple Sun Clock. All you need is a pencil, a compass and a print out of the clock template. Go to https://www.exploratorium.edu/science_explorer/sunclock.html for more information. Use that clock to tell you when it is 5:30 a.m. so you can go out and see Saturn a half a fist above the Moon.

Thursday: Astronomers are often fascinated with large objects. Planets that could hold 1000 Earths (Jupiter). Stars that would fill up the entire inner Solar System (Betelgeuse). Galaxies with 400 billion stars (Milky Way). But what about the smallest objects? One of the smallest stars is Proxima Centauri, the closest known star other than our Sun. It is about 12% of the mass of the Sun. Three years ago, astronomers announced the discovery of an Earth-sized planet orbiting Proxima Centauri indicating that even very small stars can have planets. The smallest theoretically possible star would be about 7.5% of the mass of the Sun. Any smaller and it could not support the nuclear reactions characteristic of stars. For more on small stars, go to http://goo.gl/EHBdOX.

Mars, an object that can hold two of Earth’s Moons, is a half of a fist above above the Earth’s Moon at 5:30 a.m.

Friday: The bright planet Venus is three fists above the western horizon at 8:30 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.