The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of February 24, 2024

Saturday: February’s full moon is known as the Snow Moon. That name may have been appropriate when I was younger and living in Minnesota. But with human influenced climate change, many northern locations are getting less snow than in the past and it is melting earlier.

Sunday: At 6:10 a.m., Venus and Mars are less than a half fist held upright and at arm's length above the horizon. Dimmer Mars is a little to the right of much brighter Venus.

Monday: The weather has been chilly. It will feel good to think ahead about spring. The spring triangle, the nearly equilateral triangle of Spica, Arcturus, and Denebola, is called the spring triangle because the three stars are rising as the Sun is setting near the start of spring. Since spring is currently a month away, the three stars rise a few hours after sunset. By 11:00 p.m., the bright star Arcturus is two and a half fists above due east. Spica is one fist above the southeastern horizon. Denebola, the dimmest of the three but still the 60th brightest star in the night sky, is four and a half fists above the southeastern horizon.

Tuesday: Last week we learned that Clyde Tombaugh discovered the first planet 9. Will you discover the new Planet 9? You and thousands of others will have the opportunity to comb through images of the sky from NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). You’ll view short “flipbook” movies of the same patch of sky on different nights. Any point of light that moves could be Planet 9 or another undiscovered Solar System object. Read about how you can join the search for Planet 9 at https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/marckuchner/backyard-worlds-planet-9.

Wednesday: Jupiter is four fists above the west-southwestern horizon at 7:00 p.m.

Thursday: Today is Leap Day – the day when everyone leaps for joy because we have an extra day to rest. Well, not everyone leaps for joy on Leap Day. Frederic, one of the main characters in the play (and movie) The Pirates of Penzance, wished Leap Day did not exist. As an infant, Frederic was apprenticed to a group of pirates until his 21st birthday. He started to celebrate his freedom when he reached the end of his 21st year. However, the pirates read the rules differently. Frederic was born on Leap Day – February 29. The pirates want him until the 21st celebration of February 29 – when he is 84. Perhaps the pirates would have let Frederic go early if he explained the need for a Leap Day.

The Earth takes 365.24 days to orbit the Sun. Thus, each year, our calendar falls about a quarter of a day behind the Earth’s actual motion. Almost every four years, we add a day to the calendar to make up for that day. You may have noticed that this correction overcompensates because 4 X 0.24 = 0.96, a little less than a full day. In order to correct for this over compensation, the years that mark the turn of the century are not leap years unless they are divisible by 400. 2000 was a leap year. 2100, 2200, and 2300 will not be leap years.

Friday: More celestial evidence that spring is around the corner. The wintertime constellation Orion is moving towards the western horizon. Orion’s belt is two and a half fists above the southwestern horizon at 10:00 p.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.

The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of February 17, 2024

Saturday: On February 18, 1930, Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto, at that time classified as the ninth planet. However, as astronomers started discovering a lot of similar objects in that part of the Solar System, they realized that they had a classification crisis on their hands. Should everything in this region of the Solar System be named a planet? Eventually the International Astronomical Union (IAU) reclassified Pluto and all future Pluto-like objects as dwarf planets. This week you can celebrate the discovery with the people at Lowell Observatory, the “home” of Pluto’s discovery. Go to https://iheartpluto.org/ for more information about online events this weekend.

Sunday: Venus and Mars do a dance together low in the southeastern sky right before sunrise. They are a little less than a half a fist held upright and at arm’s length above the southeastern horizon at 6:30 a.m. Keep an eye on them all week as they slowly move past each other. Venus is the brighter of the two and easier to keep track of.

Monday: This President’s Day, let’s remember Abraham Lincoln: 16th president, country lawyer, man on the penny, wrestler, and astronomer. Astronomer? Well, maybe not an astronomer, but someone who used observational evidence from the sky to solve a problem. In 1858, Lincoln defended Duff Armstrong, a family friend who was accused of murder. The prosecution thought they had a strong case because their primary witnesses claimed to have observed the killing by the light of the nearly full moon, which they called “Moon bright”. Let’s listen in on the trial courtesy of the 1939 film, Young Mr. Lincoln.

Lincoln: How’d you see so well?

Witness: I told you it was Moon bright, Mr. Lincoln.

Lincoln: Moon bright.

Witness: Yes.

(Dramatic pause as Lincoln reaches for something)

Lincoln: Look at this. Go on, look at it. It’s the Farmer’s Almanack (sic). You see what it says about the Moon. That the Moon… set at 10: 21, 40 minutes before the killing took place. So you see it couldn’t have been Moon bright, could it?

Lincoln used the known information about Moon rising and setting times for August 29, 1858 as evidence in a trial. This is one of the earliest uses of forensic astronomy. For more information about Lincoln’s “almanac trial”, go to http://goo.gl/r83q4X. 

Tuesday: The bright stars of Gemini, Pollux and Castor, point straight up above the moon at 8:30 p.m. They are high in the southeastern sky. Polux, the star right above the moon, is the brightest star known to have a planet orbiting it.

Wednesday: Jupiter is four fists above the west-southwestern horizon at 7:30 p.m.

Thursday: It’s getting dark. The last remnant of twilight has disappeared. Suddenly, you notice a large softly radiant pyramid of light in the western sky. The base of this ghostly triangle is along the west horizon and the peak stretches two or three fists above the horizon. It is not really a ghost. It is an effect called the zodiacal light. This light comes from sunlight reflecting off dust grains in our solar system. The effect is the most visible when the band of constellations called the zodiac makes a steep angle with the horizon. You need a clear dark sky with no haze or light pollution to see the zodiacal light. At its brightest, the zodiacal light rivals the light of the central Milky Way. Look for the ghostly patch after twilight for the next few weeks.

Friday: Two bright stars, Vega and Deneb, are hugging the northern horizon together at 11:00 p.m. Vega, the brighter of the two, is about a half a fist above the northeastern horizon. Supergiant Deneb to two and a half fists to the left of Vega, closer to due north.

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 February 10, 2024

Saturday: Saturn is about one finger width to the upper right of the moon at 6:00 p.m. They are about a half a fist held upright and at arm’s length above the west-southwestern horizon.

Sunday: Are you going to watch the super bowl tonight? Is the bowl really that super? After all, half the night the bowl is tipped upside down, spilling out all its contents. But don’t just focus on the functionality of the bowl. Think about how it inspires people across the world to look at the night sky. In Mongolia, participants in the super bowl are known as gods. An Arabian story says the super bowl is a coffin. I encourage you to go outside tonight at about 8:00 p.m., after whatever unimportant thing you have been doing since 3:30 p.m. Look low in the north-northwestern sky and watch the super bowl, also known as the Big Dipper, balancing on the end of its handle, proudly displaying its large bowl.

Monday: The Galileo spacecraft, launched in 1989 to explore the solar system, found evidence of life on a planet. Astronomers studied a highly pixelated image of the overall light emitted from the planet to detect the presence of oxygen. By analyzing the changes in pixel brightness as the planet rotated, astronomers got a rough idea of its surface characteristics. They ascertained that the planet has a mixture of both water and land, making it well suited for life. If you’d like to observe this planet tonight, just look down. The planet Galileo studied in this superficial way is called Earth. You might wonder why astronomers would gather such sparse data to study the Earth. The data Galileo gathered about Earth is the same as what Earth-based and Earth-orbiting telescopes can gather from objects in the outer solar system now and will be able to gather about planets orbiting other stars over the coming years. By gathering the data and comparing it to what we know about Earth, astronomers can catalog what data about other planets may indicate about those planets. For more information about this study, go to https://www.universetoday.com/165652/did-the-galileo-mission-find-life-on-earth/.

Tuesday: According to Greek mythology, the beautiful princess Andromeda was chained to a rock next to the ocean. Cetus the sea monster was about to devour her to punish her family. It seemed that all was lost. But along came the great warrior Perseus, fresh off his defeat of the evil Gorgon, Medusa. The only similarity between Andromeda and Medusa was that Andromeda caused people to stand still and stare at her beauty while Medusa turned people to stone because of her ugliness. (And you thought you looked bad in the morning.) Even though Perseus’ standing as the son of King Zeus and the slayer of Medusa was probably enough to win Andromeda under normal circumstances, Andromeda’s impending death-by-sea-monster was not a normal circumstance. So, Perseus drove his sword into the sea monster's neck and killed it. In a little-known addendum to the story, Perseus carved “Percy (heart symbol) Andi” in the rock, thus originating the use of the heart symbol as a substitute for the word “love”.

You can find these lovers in the sky this Valentine’s Day. Just remember it is rude to stare – because you never know who might turn to stone. First, find the Great Square of Pegasus at 7:00 p.m. between one and a half and three and a half fists above the west horizon. The lowest star in Andromeda is the top star in the square. This represents Andromeda’s head. Perseus is at her feet, nearly straight overhead. Mirphak, the brightest star in Perseus, is about eight fists above the west horizon. Perseus’ body is represented by the line of stars to the left and right of Mirphak.

Wednesday: Jupiter is less than a half a fist to the left of the moon, midway up in the southwestern sky at 7:00 p.m.

Thursday: The sky is so wondrous. It makes me want to sing. Who can forget that memorable song by Three Dog Constellations Night, “The sky is black. The stars are white. Together we learn to find the light.” Well, maybe it didn’t go like that. Which is good. Because not all stars are white. Most stars are too dim to notice a color. But two of the stars in the constellation Orion provide a noticeable contrast with each other. Betelgeuse, five fists above due south at 8:30 p.m. is a red giant. Rigel, the bright star about two fists to the lower right of Betelgeuse, is a blue giant.

By the way, the three dog constellations are Canis Major, the greater dog, found one and a half fists to the lower left of Orion; Canis Minor, the lesser dog, found two and a half fists to the left of Betelgeuse; and Canes Venatici, the hunting dogs, found low in the northeast sky, halfway between the Big Dipper and the horizon. Canis Major contains Sirius, the brightest star in the nighttime sky.

Friday: The good news is the days are getting longer and the nights are getting shorter. The better news for most readers of this column is the farther north you go in the United States, the longer the days get. Here in Ellensburg, there are almost two more hours of daylight than on the first day of winter. In the southern part of the US, there is only 50 more minutes of sunlight. If you’d like to have your own fun with day lengths and other time questions, go to https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/.

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 February 3, 2024

Saturday: Let’s review three important sets of three cats. There’s Josie, Valerie, and Melody of Josie and the Pussycats. Felix, Tom, and Sylvester from old time cartoons. And, if you want to get away from the mind-numbing effects of television, there’s Leo the lion, Leo Minor, and Lynx in the night sky. Leo is by far the most prominent of these three constellations. Its brightest star called Regulus is four fists above the east-southeastern horizon at 10:00 p.m. The backwards question mark-shaped head of Leo is above Regulus and the trapezoid-shaped body is to the left of it. Leo Minor consists of a few dim stars right above Leo. Pretty wimpy. The long dim constellation called Lynx spans from just above Leo Minor to nearly straight overhead. You and fellow stargazers won’t need to wear a long tail or ears on a headband to enjoy these stellar cats.

Sunday: Antares is about a half a fist to the lower left of the moon at 6:30 a.m., about one and a half fists above the south-southeastern horizon.

Monday: Venus is about a fist to the left of the moon at 6:30 a.m., about a half a fist above the southeastern horizon.

Tuesday: It will be a challenge to see because of the soon to be rising Sun. At 6:45 a.m. low on the southeastern horizon, the moon, Mars, and Venus make a small triangle in the sky. The moon is on the lower right, Venus is at the top, and hard to spot Mars is at the lower left.

Wednesday: While the moon takes a break from the night sky by being nearly in line with the Sun, we’ll need to get our observational thrills in another part of the sky and at another time. Saturn is moving towards the Sun in the evening sky so it won’t be visible much longer this season. At 6:00 p.m., Saturn is about a half a fist above the west-southwestern horizon. Jupiter will be visible in the evening sky until April. Tonight, it is five and a half fists above the southern horizon at 6:00 p.m.

Thursday: You can set your watch tonight by carefully observing Caph, the bottom star in the E-shaped Cassiopeia. It will be due northwest at exactly 8:00 p.m. However, another star in Cassiopeia is causing astronomers to doubt whether or not they can use neutron stars as the most precise known clocks in the universe. Neutron stars have such a precise spin rate that they are used to set super accurate clocks on Earth. In 2013, astronomers using NASA’s Swift x-ray telescope noticed that the neutron star called 1E 2259+586 exhibited a spin glitch that had never been seen before. The spin rate of about eight times a minute decreased by 2.2 millionths of a second. Read more about this at http://goo.gl/C4V8R1. In 2016, astronomers using NASA’s Swift x-ray telescope observed the slowest rotating neutron star, once every 6.5 hours. What is it with using a telescope named Swift to make discoveries about something slowing? Maybe that slow developing question will be answered at https://tinyurl.com/y6ag6g7c. 

Friday: At 9:45 p.m., the blue giant star called Adhara is one and a half fists above due south. It is the 22nd brightest star in the sky. Currently over 430 light years away, Adhara was only 34 light years away five million years ago. That proximity made it the brightest star in the nighttime sky at the time.

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.