The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of August 1, 2020

Saturday:  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 today from noon to 1:00 p.m. CWU professor Bruce Palmquist will guide you through a short trip through the Solar System using Worldwide Telescope, using the Worldwide Telescope program found at http://worldwidetelescope.org/webclient/. Go to https://tinyurl.com/y6ojsez3 for registration information.

After the Sun sets, look to the southeastern sky to see Saturn about a half a fist held at arm’s length to the left of the Moon and Jupiter less than a half a fist above the Moon. If you look with a good pair of 10x50 binoculars, you may see the moons Ganymede and Callisto tucked in to the upper right of Jupiter. They’ll probably look like a single point of light.

Sunday: Comet NEOWISE is no longer visible to the naked eye. But it is still a splendid binocular object. At 10:00 p.m. tonight, it is nearly three fists held upright and at arm’s length above the western horizon and two fists to the lower right of the bright star Arcturus (which is four fists above the west-southwestern horizon). Comet NEOWISE is less than a first to the left of the Coma Star Cluster, an open star cluster about 280 light years from Earth.

Monday: The Perseid meteor shower peaks next week. But the Moon will be out during the peak late night/early morning times so it may be better to spread out your Perseid viewing this year. The meteors appear to come from a point just below the W of the constellation Cassiopeia. This point is about two and a half fists above the northeast horizon at 11 p.m. By dawn, this point is about seven fists above the northeast horizon. If you fall asleep or forget to set your alarm, you will be able to observe this shower from about 11 p.m. to dawn for the next two weeks in about the same location in the sky. The Perseid shower is one of the longest lasting showers. For tips about optimizing your viewing this year, go tohttps://earthsky.org/?p=165416  As your Mother might say, dress warm and sit in a comfortable chair for maximum enjoyment. These meteors are sand to pea-sized bits of rock that fell off of Comet Swift-Tuttle. They are traveling about 40 miles per second as they collide with the Earth and burn up in the atmosphere.

Tuesday: Venus is two and a half fists above the eastern horizon at 5:00 a.m. Mercury is a half a fist above the east-northeastern horizon at this time, rapidly moving towards the Sun in the sky. By next week, it will be lost in the glare of the rising Sun.

Wednesday: It is not winter yet. But Orion, thought of as a winter constellation, is just above the east-southeastern horizon at 5:00 a.m. By the actual winter, it will be visible in the evening sky. 

Thursday: Mizar is a well-known binary star in the constellation Ursa Major. You can find it at the bend in the Big Dipper handle, four fists above due northwest at 11:00 p.m. Its name is Arabic for waistband. Mizar has an optical double called Alcor, which is less than a pinky width away and can easily be seen with the naked eye. Optical doubles are stars that are close together in the sky but do not orbit a common center of mass as true binary stars. Not wanting to deceive sky gazers who call Alcor and Mizar a binary star, two stars that DO orbit a common center of mass, Mizar actually is a binary. It was the first binary star system discovered using a telescope. Mizar A and Mizar B are about 400 astronomical units apart from each other and about 80 light years from Earth. 400 astronomical units is about 10 times the distance between the Sun and Pluto.

Friday: Mars is one fist above the eastern horizon and one fist to the left of the Moon 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 July 25, 2020

Saturday:  The Southern Delta Aquarid meteor shower peaks this week and on into mid-August. 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 southeastern horizon at 1 am tonight. 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 Moon is in the waxing phases most of this week, meaning it will be below the horizon or low on the horizon during prime meteor watching time. For more information about this year’s shower, go to https://earthsky.org/?p=159138.  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.

Spica is right below the waxing crescent Moon tonight and tomorrow at 9:30 p.m.. Tonight it is a fist to the lower left of the Moon. Tomorrow will be less than a fist to the lower right of the Moon.

Sunday: Comet NEOWISE, C/2020 F3, is dimming but still easy to find with binoculars. If you are at a dark site, you can see it with the naked eye, as well.  At 10:00 p.m., the comet is three fists above the west-northwest horizon and about two fists to the lower right of the bottom of the Big Dipper cup. For more information and images of the comet, go to https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/comet-neowise-dazzles-at-dusk/.

Monday: Jupiter is one and a half fists above the south-southeastern horizon at 10:00 p.m.. Saturn is less than a fist to the left, or east, of Jupiter. Pluto is sitting right between them. But you won’t be able to see it unless you have a large telescope or a medium sized telescope with a camera. The magnitude value is a measure of how bright a celestial object appears. Smaller numbers mean brighter objects. Tonight Jupiter is magnitude -2.7, behind only Venus in brightness among points of light in the sky. Pluto is magnitude 14.3. This magnitude difference means Jupiter appears more than six million times brighter than Pluto.

Tuesday: The very bright Venus, nearly five times brighter than Jupiter, is two fists above the eastern horizon at 4:30 a.m.. Mercury is less than a half a fist above the north-northeastern horizon.

Wednesday: What you see with the naked eye isn’t all that can be seen. While astronomers can learn a lot from observing the sky in the visible wavelengths, many celestial objects radiate more light, and more information, in wavelengths such as radio, microwave, infrared, ultraviolet, x-ray, and gamma ray. In 2012, NASA launched the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) to study objects that radiate in the infrared range such as asteroids, cool dim stars, and luminous galaxies. For an interesting comparison of how different wavelengths show different aspects of celestial objects, go to http://goo.gl/nvuax. For example, if it weren’t for infrared telescopes such as WISE, astronomers would not know about the significant amount of dust in galaxies. We also wouldn’t know how much brighter than the Sun red supergiant stars are. Antares is a red supergiant star, currently sitting at one and a half fists above the southern horizon and a half a fist below the Moon. In the visible wavelengths, Antares shines 10,000 times brighter than the Sun. But since Antares is much cooler that the Sun, its energy distribution peaks in the infrared. So across all wavelengths of light, Antares shines 60,000 times brighter than the Sun.

Thursday: This is the summer of Mars missions. Last week, both China and the United Arab Emirates launched payload bound for Mars. In fact, the UAE mission marks the first time a space agency is sending a mission to Mars before trying one to the Moon. NASA launches the Perseverance Rover this morning. Watch the NASA launch at https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/timeline/launch/watch-online/. For more information about the three Mars missions, go to https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/three-missions-head-for-mars/. 

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 guide you through a short trip through the Solar System using Worldwide Telescope, using the Worldwide Telescope program found at http://worldwidetelescope.org/webclient/. Go to https://tinyurl.com/y6ojsez3 for registration information.

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.