Saturday: Looking for something to do with your bored, science-loving children? Take them to Nature of Night, taking place from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm in the Science Building on the CWU campus. There will be a hands-on exploration of night-time science with activities, displays, the planetarium, and much more. Scouts can earn their astronomy-related badges. Use this campus map, http://www.cwu.edu/map, and search for “Science Building”.
Before you fall back on your bed tonight, set your clock
back one hour to the real time. Daylight savings ends early Sunday morning at
2:00 a.m. This means one more hour of sky watching in the evening because the
Sun will set one hour earlier. Ben Franklin proposed the idea of “saving
daylight” by adjusting our clocks way back in 1784. Daylight savings time was
first utilized during World War I as a way to save electricity. After the war,
it was abandoned. It was reintroduced during World War II on a year-round
basis. From 1945 to 1966, some areas implemented daylight savings and some did
not. Also, it was not implemented with any uniformity as to when it should
start and stop. The Uniform Time Act of 1966 codified the daylight savings
rules. Some states would like to adopt daylight savings year around.
Sunday: The Northern Taurid meteor shower peaks this week.
The peak of the peak is the night of November 11/12. These are slow moving
meteors that result in the occasional fireball. The Taurid meteor showers
produce a few bright meteors every hour. The Moon will obscure the dim meteors
this year. These meteors appear to come from a point in Taurus the bull, near
the open star cluster called the Pleiades. This point is about three fists held
upright and at arm’s length above the east horizon at 8 p.m. You can follow
this point throughout the night, as it will remain one fist above the V-shaped
Hyades Cluster with its bright star Aldebaran (pronounced Al-deb’-a-ran).
Meteors are tiny rocks that burn up in the atmosphere when the Earth runs into
them. These rocks are broken off parts of Comet 2P/Encke. Go to https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/taurid-meteors-all-you-need-to-know/
for more information.
Monday: There is a total lunar eclipse late tonight/early
tomorrow morning. Total lunar eclipses are not as noticeable as total solar
eclipses because light still reaches the Moon even when it is completely
blocked by the Earth. That is because the Earth’s atmosphere acts like a lens
and bends rays of light toward the Moon that would normally miss the Moon.
However, that doesn’t mean the Moon looks the same during a total lunar eclipse
as it does during a normal full moon.
Sunlight is white. White light is the sum of all of the
colors in the visible spectrum (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and
violet). Our atmosphere scatters the blue component of the Sun’s white light.
That is why our sky is blue. (If our atmosphere consisted of different gasses,
we would likely have a different colored sky.) When the Sun or Moon is near the
horizon, the light passes through a lot of the atmosphere meaning a lot of the
blue light is scattered and the Sun or Moon looks redder than when it is high
in the sky. During a total lunar eclipse, sunlight passes through a large slice
of the Earth’s atmosphere. The remaining light that reaches the Moon is
reddish. Some people say the fully eclipsed Moon looks Blood Red! These people
exaggerate. It arrears a dull reddish color.
From the perspective of Ellensburg in the Pacific Time Zone,
the partial eclipse stage will start at 1:09 a.m. late tonight/early tomorrow
morning. The Moon will slowly move into the Earth’s shadow and get dark from
left to right. At 2:16 a.m., the Moon will be fully eclipsed. The total eclipse
lasts until 3:41 a.m. The moon will be moving out of the earth’s darkest shadow
or umbra until 4:49 a.m. After that, the moon will look white, just like a
normal full moon. Thus, during the entire eclipse, the moon looks white, then
black, then red all over. For more information about the eclipse, including
information about the specific times for your location, go to https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/lunar/2022-november-8.
Tuesday: At 8:00 p.m., Saturn is two fists above the
south-southwestern horizon, Jupiter is four fists above the south-southeastern
horizon, and Mars is one and a half fists above the east-northeastern horizon.
Wednesday: Sirius, the brightest star in the nighttime sky,
is a half a fist above the southeastern horizon at 11:30 p.m.
Thursday: While Stonehenge is an ancient burial ground
visited by religious people for thousands of years, MIThenge is an 825-foot
long hallway on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology visited
by the Sun’s rays twice a year. Every year in November and January, the setting
Sun lines up with a narrow window at the end of the long hall and the light
shines down to the opposite end. This season’s alignment is from November
10-12. For more information, visit http://goo.gl/0hwFQf
or visit MIT. While you are at it, challenge yourself to find a similar
alignment in your neighborhood.
Friday: Are you planning on opening your Martinmas gifts
today? Martinmas is a holiday in many parts of the world commemorating Saint
Martin of Tours. He was buried on November 11, 397. What does this have to do
with astronomy? Not much except that the celebration on November 11 often
doubles as a cross-quarter day celebration, a day that is halfway between an
equinox and a solstice. Also, according to an agricultural calendar, November
11 marks the practical beginning of winter.
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.
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