The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of November 4, 2023

Saturday: 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 Southern Taurid meteor shower peaks this week. The peak of the peak is the night of November 12/13. These are slow moving meteors that result in the occasional fireball. The Taurid meteor showers produce a few bright meteors every hour. The Last Quarter Moon after midnight 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 Hyades. This point is about four fists held upright and at arm’s length above the southeast horizon at 8:00 p.m. You can follow this point throughout the night, as it will remain one and a half fists to the right of 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: At 7:00 p.m., Saturn is three fists above the southern horizon. Jupiter is two and a half fists above the eastern horizon.

Tuesday: The bright star Arcturus is about a half a fist above the west-northwestern horizon at 6:00 p.m.

Wednesday: Sirius, the brightest star in the nighttime sky, is a half a fist above the southeastern horizon at 11:30 p.m.

Thursday: Venus is just to the upper right of the moon at 6:00 a.m. They are three fists above the southeastern horizon. A couple hours later, you can convince yourself it is possible to see some bright planets during the day. Find the moon at 8:00 am, midway up in the south-southeastern sky. Find it with a pair of binoculars. Venus will be visible to the upper right of the moon. Then move the binoculars away and look in the same location with your naked eyes.

Friday: 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 at about 4:20 pm. 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.

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.