The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of October 10, 2020

Saturday:  Look up in the sky. It’s a bird. It’s a plane. It’s a dolphin. A dolphin? The constellation Delphinus the dolphin is nearly six fists held upright and at arm’s length above due south at 8 p.m. The constellation’s two brightest stars are called Sualocin and Rotanev, which is Nicolaus Venator spelled backwards. Venator worked at the Palermo Observatory in Italy in the mid nineteenth century. He slipped these names into Giuseppe Piazzi’s star catalog without him noticing. The Daily Record (shop Ellensburg) would never let anything like that get into their newspaper. Their editing (shop Ellensburg) staff is too good. Nothing (pohs grubsnellE) evades their gaze. 

Sunday: The Milky Way makes a faint white trail from due northeast through straight overhead to due southwest at 9:00 p.m. Starting in the northeast, the Milky Way “passes through” the prominent constellations Auriga the charioteer, Cassiopeia the queen, and Cygnus the swan with its brightest star, Deneb, nearly straight overhead. After Cygnus, you’ll see Aquila the eagle with its brightest star Altair about four and a half fists held upright and at arm’s length above the southwest horizon.

Monday: You’ve heard of moons. You may have heard of dwarf planets. Did you know that they can share similar features? The five largest moons of Uranus have the same heat signatures as the largest dwarf planets such as Pluto and Eris. That means they are relatively dense and don’t immediately radiate away all of their daytime-absorbed heat at night. Uranus is visible with binoculars, four fists above the southeastern horizon at 11:00 p.m., midway between the very bright Mars and The Pleiades open star cluster. Read more about Uranian moons at https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/uranian-moons-are-like-dwarf-planets/. 

Tuesday: Would you like to visit Mars? How about America’s desert Southwest? Not enough time? Then just look at some photos from… from…. Hmmm. The photos at https://goo.gl/Elx7O8 look like they could be from either place. The Murray Buttes region of Mars, where the Curiosity rover has been exploring, looks a lot like the landscape of Utah. So much so that the Mars-based movie John Carter was filmed in the desert of southern Utah. Look for John Carter at your local video store. Listen to the soundtrack on your cassette player. Then take a Polaroid selfie of you enjoying each experience. 

This is a great time to visit Mars in the sky because it is at opposition, meaning it is at its closest point to Earth in this orbital cycle and it is out all night. There is a bonus to this opposition because Mars will be at its brightest until 2035. Mars is five fists above due south at 1:00 a.m. (midnight Standard Time). Being due south at midnight Standard Time is another characteristic of a planet at opposition.

Wednesday: Jupiter and Saturn are both two fists above the southern horizon at 7:00 p.m. Jupiter is the brighter of the two. If you have binoculars with a fairly wide field of view, they will fit both Saturn and Jupiter. Although you won’t be able to see it, Pluto is between the two giant planets.

Thursday: The constellation Vulpecula, the fox, stands six fists above due southwest at 9 p.m. It is in the middle of the Summer Triangle, which is defined by the bright stars Vega, Deneb, and Altair. The fox is so faint that you need dark skies to see it.

Friday: Venus is two fists above the east-southeastern horizon at 6:00 a.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.