What's up in the Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of April 29, 2023

Saturday: The bright star Regulus is a half a fist to the lower right of the moon at 9:00 p.m., high in the southern sky.

Sunday: The Eta Aquarid meteor shower peaks just before dawn on May 5, 6, and 7. Since this meteor shower has a fairly broad peak range, you should start looking before dawn every morning this week. The moon is close to the full moon phase near the peak, meaning all but the brightest meteors will be obscured. Meteor showers are named after the constellation from which the meteors appear to originate. The meteors appear to come from a point in the constellation Aquarius near the star Eta. This point is about one fist held upright and at arm’s length above the east horizon at 4:00 a.m. The Eta Aquarid meteors slam into the Earth at about 40 miles per second. They often leave a long trail. The Eta Aquarid meteors are small rocks that have broken off Halley’s Comet. For more information about the Eta Aquarids, go to http://earthsky.org/?p=158833.

Monday: At 10:00 p.m., Venus is nearly two fists above the west-northwestern horizon and Mars is three and a half fists above due west.

Tuesday: “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.

Wednesday: The bright star Spica is less than a half a fist to the lower right of the moon at 9:00 p.m. in the southeastern sky.

Thursday: It is often said that Earth is a water world because about 70% of the Earth’s surface is covered by water. What would it look like if all that water on the surface were gathered up into a ball? That “ball” would be about 700 km in diameter, less than half the diameter of the Moon. The Astronomy Picture of the day shows us right here https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120515.html.

Friday: Saturn is one and a half fists above the southeastern horizon at 5:00 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.