Saturday: The asteroid 2 Pallas is in opposition tonight. That doesn’t mean the asteroid is spending the night saying, “no.” That means tonight is the best night of the year to observe Pallas. Why should you care about Pallas? It is the third largest asteroid in the Solar System, after Ceres and Vesta. It was the second one discovered, after Ceres. You’ll need binoculars to discover it yourself. First find the curved line constellation Corona Borealis, nearly six fists above the east-southeastern at 10:00 p.m. Move the binoculars to the upper right about two binocular fields of view. Pallas is in the middle of that triangle. Revisit that part of the sky for the next few nights. Pallas is the point of light that will change position from night to night.
Sunday: In 1979, the group Foreigner recorded the song “Head
Games”. They could have been singing about the constellations Hercules and
Ophiuchus when they said “head games, it’s just you and me baby, head games, I
can’t take it anymore” because the heads of these two constellations have been
right next to each other in the nighttime sky for all of human history. And
just to make it easy for you, a star that bears an Arabic name that means “the
head” represents each head. In Hercules, it's Ras Algethi (head of the
kneeler); in Ophiuchus, Ras Alhague (head of the serpent charmer). At 11:00
p.m., Ras Alhague, the brighter of the two, is about two fists held upright and
at arm’s length above the east-southeastern horizon. Ras Algethi is about a
half a fist to the upper right of Ras Alhague.
Monday: Are you thirsty? I'll wait while you get some water.
I will NOT wait while Corvus the crow gets you some water. The Greco-Roman god
Apollo made this mistake. He sent Corvus the crow to get some water in the cup
known as Crater. Some figs distracted Corvus and he waited for them to ripen so
he could eat them. When Corvus got back late, Apollo put Corvus and Crater in
the sky with the gently tipping cup just out of the reach of the perpetually
thirsty crow. Corvus is a trapezoid-shaped constellation about two fists above
due south at 9:30 p.m. Crater is just to the right of Corvus.
Tuesday: At 4:30 a.m., Saturn is one and a half fists above
the east-southeastern horizon. Mars is a little less than one fist above due
east.
Wednesday: Are you up at 2:17 a.m., looking due north and
thinking you see a UFO coming to take you away? That's no UFO. It's the bright
star Capella, a circumpolar star that never goes below the horizon as viewed
from Ellensburg.
Thursday: The bright star Antares is right above the moon,
just above the southeastern horizon at 10:00 a.m. Antares will remain near the
moon throughout the night. But since the moon is so close to the Earth, its own
motion has a noticeable effect on its position in the sky. It moves a little
bit eastward with respect to the background stars. The evidence of this is that
the moon is noticeably farther from Antares as both are about to set at 5:00
a.m. than they were when they both rose seven hours earlier.
Friday: Are you thirsty when you get up in the morning? I
know you are not waiting for Corvus. That’s okay because the Big Dipper is
positioned to hold water in the morning sky. Look three fists above the
northwest horizon at 4:30 a.m. You’ll see three stars that make a bent handle
and four stars that make a cup.
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.
All times are Pacific Time unless noted.
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