The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of February 1, 2025

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 fake tail or ears on a headband to enjoy these stellar cats.

Sunday: Today is Groundhog Day, an important day for pop culture astronomers and Bill Murray movie fans. If Punxsutawney Phil doesn’t see his shadow, he is telling us that he follows the Chinese calendar and that spring starts early. On the Chinese calendar, equinoxes and solstices occur in the middle of their respective seasons. In order for the vernal equinox to occur in the middle of spring, spring must start on February 3 or 4, depending on the year. Thus, if Phil doesn’t see his shadow, legend is that spring will start on February 3 or 4 as on the Chinese calendar. If Phil sees his shadow, he is telling us he agrees with the western calendar and that there will be six more weeks of winter meaning spring will start near March 20.

Monday: The brightest star in the head of Draco the dragon is called Eltanin, based on the Arabic At-Tinnin or “great serpent.” It is currently about 150 light years away. Eltanin is moving towards our Solar System. In 1.5 million years, it will be only 28 light years away and the brightest star in the night sky, nearly as bright as Sirius is currently. Eltanin is one fist above due north at 9:00 p.m.

Tuesday: Venus is two and a half fists above the west-southwestern horizon at 6:30 p.m. Saturn is halfway between Venus and the horizon.

Wednesday: 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.

Thursday: Jupiter is a half a fist to the lower left of the moon at 8:00 p.m. They are about six and a half fists above the southern horizon. Mars is five and a half fists above the east-southeastern horizon at this time.

Friday: 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 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.

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.

The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of January 25, 2025

Saturday: Venus, the brightest point of light in the sky, is two and a half fists held upright and at arm’s length above the southwestern horizon. Saturn is a half a fist below it, nearly two fists above the horizon.

Sunday: Are you interested in taking part in astronomy research? You don’t need to go back to school. You don’t need to spend thousands of dollars getting a fake degree from an online university. The scientists working on the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, or HiRISE, camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter would like your input on which objects they should target for close-up pictures. While you may think the scientists are just trying to build interest in their project by having people look at pretty pictures, there is a real scientific benefit to having many eyes searching for interesting targets. There aren’t enough scientists to carefully inspect all the low power images. And surprisingly, computers are not nearly as effective as people in making nuanced judgments of images. So, go to https://www.uahirise.org/ and click on the HiWish button. You’ll be on your way to suggesting close-up targets for NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. If that is too much work for you, just go outside this evening at 8:00 p.m. Mars is four and a half fists above the eastern horizon. The star Pollux is just to the left of Mars and the star Castor is to the upper left of Mars. Astronomers have evidence that a planet orbits Pollux, which would make it the brightest star, as seen from Earth, with a planet.

Monday: Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, rises at 5:30 p.m. By 7:00 p.m., it is one fist above the southeastern horizon.

Tuesday: Sure, you can look at the planets with your naked eyes. Or even a small telescope. But do you ever wonder what the planets look like up close? This video takes you on a short tour of the surface of each planet, using images and landers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uF1E_u5EvZg.

Wednesday: Winter is a good time to see the thick band of the Milky Way galaxy. It arches high in the early evening sky at 8:00 p.m. starting in the southeast by Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky. Climbing from Sirius through the "horns" of Taurus to the bright star Capella nearly straight overhead, it drops down toward M-shaped Cassiopeia in the north and the tail of Cygnus the swan and its bright star Deneb, in the northwest.

Thursday: Mercury is too close to the Sun in the sky to be easily seen. Luckily, the European Space Agency spacecraft called BepiColombo just sent back the best ever images of Mercury. Go to https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/BepiColombo to watch the movie.

Friday: Jupiter is six and a half fists above due south at 8:00 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. All times are Pacific Time unless noted.

The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of January 18, 2025

Saturday: Saturn is just to the lower left of the very bright Venus, two and a half fists held upright and at arm’s length above due southwest at 6:00 p.m. And this is just the start of Solar System neighborliness, also called a planetary alignment. Neptune is about a fist to the upper left of Venus. Neptune is difficult to find, even with binoculars. Also visible with binoculars is Uranus. However, it is easier to find than Neptune for two reasons. First, it is about seven times brighter. Second, it is close to an easy-to-find object. First find the bright open star cluster called the Pleiades, a tiny cup-looking object nearly six fists above the southeastern horizon. With the Pleiades on the far left of your binocular field of view, there will be a little arch of four stars of similar brightness near or just outside the right of your field of view. Under this arch is a point of light that is a little dimmer. This point of light and the arch make an ice cream cone shape. The point of light at the bottom is Uranus. You’ll know you’ve found the correct point of light if it moves a tiny bit compared to the neighboring stars over the next few weeks. The next planet is easy to see - Jupiter - nearly six fists above due southeast. Finally, Mars is nearly three and a half fists above due east.

Sunday: Winter is the best season for finding bright stars. And if you only want to set aside a few minutes, 10:00 p.m. tonight is a great time because the winter hexagon is due south. Starting at the bottom, find Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, two and a half fists above the southern horizon. Going clockwise, Procyon (8^th brightest star in the night sky) is about two and a half fists to the upper left of Sirius. Pollux (17^th brightest) is about two and a half fists above Procyon (and right above the planet Mars). Capella (6^th brightest) is about two and a half fists to the upper right of Procyon and close to straight overhead. Going back to Sirius at the bottom, Rigel (7^th brightest) is about two and a half fists to the upper right of Sirius. Aldebaran (14^th brightest) is about three fists above Rigel (and right below the planet Jupiter). Adhara (22nd brightest) is a little more than a fist below Sirius and Castor (24^th brightest) is right above Pollux. Betelgeuse (10th brightest) is in the center of the hexagon, five fists above due south. That’s nine of the 24 brightest stars visible in the night sky congregated in one small section of the sky.

Monday: Spica is less than a fist to the right of the moon in the southwestern sky at 7:00 a.m. Tomorrow at this time, it will be a half a fist to the right of the moon, providing a great way to determine how much the moon appears to move in the sky over one day.

Tuesday: This week is, on average, the coldest of the year so it is time to turn up the furnace. Fornax the furnace is one fist above due south at 7:00 p.m.

Wednesday: Wintertime weather in the northern USA can be crazy cold. Astronomers have recently discovered some brown dwarf stars have crazy hot weather. Brown dwarfs and small stars that are not massive enough to fuse hydrogen atoms and fuse hydrogen. But they are active enough to have a toxic chemical atmosphere that is as hot as a candle flame with clouds of hast moving silicate particles. Thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have the most detailed “weather map” of brown dwarfs ever. Read more about them at https://www.reuters.com/science/webb-telescope-reveals-wild-weather-cosmic-brown-dwarfs-2024-07-15/. 

Thursday: Do you ever take photos to spy on your neighbors? The Hubble Space Telescope does. In 2019, Hubble scientists released the best image of the Triangulum Galaxy, the second closest spiral galaxy to Earth. Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys weaved together 54 separate images to provide enough detail to see 10 million individual stars out of the estimated 40 billion stars in the galaxy. See the pictures at https://www.spacetelescope.org/news/heic1901/. At 8:00 p.m., the Triangulum Galaxy is six and a half fists above the southwestern horizon. It is barely visible with binoculars. First find the Great Square of Pegasus, centered four fists above the western horizon. It is tripped so it appears to be balanced on a corner. Go to the top star in the tilted square, called Alpheratz. Move your binoculars about one binocular field of view, about a half a fist above the corner star. You’ll see a pair of stars of similar brightness in that field of view. Then move your binoculars up another field of view to two stars that are a little brighter and a little farther apart than the previous pair. The brighter of the two is named Mirach. About one binocular field of view, or about a half a fist to the right of Mirach is the largest galaxy in our neighborhood and the brightest in the sky: the Andromeda Galaxy. About one binocular field of view, or about a half a fist to the left of Mirach is the Triangulum Galaxy, also known as Messier 33 (M 33). The Triangulum is much more challenging to see with binoculars, which makes the Hubble image even more impressive.

Friday: Draco Malfoy makes an appearance in all seven books of the Harry Potter series. Perhaps you’ve heard of these. But the constellation Draco the dragon makes an appearance in the sky every night. It is a circumpolar constellation as viewed from Ellensburg meaning it never goes below the horizon. The head of the dragon is one fist above due north at 9:30 p.m. Eltanin, the brightest star in the constellation, is at the lower left-hand corner of the trapezoid-shaped head of Draco.

The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically correct 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.

The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of January 11, 2025

Saturday: How do you study the life cycle of a dog? Easy. Get a dog from the animal shelter, care for it for 15 years and study it. How do you study the life cycle of a star? Easy. Pick a star, watch it for a few billion years, and…. Wait a minute. Astronomers can’t observe something for a few billion years. Instead, they study stars that are at different points in their long life cycle and piece together the information from those different stars. What they do is like studying a one-year-old dog for a few minutes, then studying a different two-year-old dog for a few minutes, and so on. The sky in and near the constellation Orion provides an example of four objects at different points of star life.

First, find Rigel, the bright star in the lower right corner of the constellation Orion. This star, rapidly burning its fuel for a high energy but short-lived existence, is three and a half fists held upright and at arm’s length above due south at 10:00 p.m. It was not, is not, and never will be like our Sun. However, about one fist up and to the left are the three objects of Orion’s sword holder. The middle “star” is really a star-forming region called the Orion nebula. There you’ll find baby Suns. Now, look about two fists to the right and one fist down from Rigel. You should be looking at a star that is about one tenth as bright as Rigel but still the brightest in its local region. The third star to the right of that star is Epsilon Eridani, the most Sun-like close and bright star. Betelgeuse, in the upper left corner of Orion, is a star at the end of its life that started out life larger than the Sun.

Sunday: Tonight Mars is as close to Earth as it will be this orbital cycle. Find it in the southeastern sky at 10:00 p.m., about one fist to the lower left of the full moon. Jupiter is to the right of the moon, six fists above the south-southwestern horizon.

Monday: The very bright planet Venus is one and a half fists above the west-southwestern horizon at 7:00 p.m. Saturn is a half a fist to the upper left of Venus. Over the next few days, Venus will move up towards Saturn in the night sky.

Tuesday: Most constellations don’t look like the object their name refers to. That’s because most constellations don’t have such a simple object to emulate as Triangulum does. Triangulum is shaped like a… wait for it…. wait for it…. A thin isosceles triangle. Metallah is the only mononymous star in the constellation. In Latin this star is called Caput Trianguli, the head of the triangle. Triangulum is four and a half fists above due west at 10:00 p.m. The triangle is pointing straight down with Metallah. The Triangulum Galaxy can be seen with binoculars about half a fist to the lower right of Metallah. This is the galaxy that the USS Enterprise travels to after the warp drive engine malfunctions in The Next Generation episode called “Where No One Has Gone Before”.

Wednesday: Have you ever looked down on the ground and spotted a penny? In Yakima? While you were standing in Ellensburg? If you have, then you may be able to see the star Hamal as more than just a point of light. It has an angular diameter that can be directly measured from Earth. Hamal, the brightest star in the constellation Aries the ram, has the same angular diameter as a penny 37 miles away. (For comparison, the moon is about half the diameter of a penny held at arm’s length.) Hamal is three fists above due west at 11:00 p.m. Hamal is just to the left of Triangulum and is the brightest star in that region of the sky.

Thursday: Mercury is just above the southeastern horizon at 7:15 a.m.

Friday: You never see a giraffe on the ground in Ellensburg. But you can look for one every night in the sky. The constellation Camelopardalis the giraffe is circumpolar from Ellensburg’s latitude of 47 degrees north meaning it is always above the horizon. Don’t expect to be overwhelmed by the appearance of the stars in Camelopardalis. The brightest star in the constellation appears only about half as bright as the dimmest star in the Big Dipper. However, the actual luminosities of the three brightest stars in Camelopardalis are very high, each at least 3,000 times more luminous than the Sun. Alpha Camelopardalis, a mind boggling 600,000 times more luminous than the Sun, is seven fists above due north at 9:00 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. All times are Pacific Time unless noted.

The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of January 4, 2025

Saturday: If the Sun looks big today, your eyes are not playing tricks on you. The Earth is at perihelion at 7:30 this morning. If you dig out your Greek language textbook, you’ll see that peri- means “in close proximity” and helios means “Sun”. So, perihelion is when an object is closest to the Sun in its orbit, about 1.5 million miles closer than its average distance of 93 million miles. Since it is winter in the Northern Hemisphere now, the seasonal temperature changes must not be caused by the Earth getting farther from and closer to the Sun. Otherwise, we’d have summer when the Earth is closest to the Sun. The seasons are caused by the angle of the sunlight hitting the Earth. In the winter, sunlight hits the Earth at a very low angle, an angle far from perpendicular or straight up and down. This means that a given “bundle” of sunlight is spread out over a large area and does not warm the surface as much as the same bundle in the summer. For the Northern Hemisphere, that very low angle occurs in December, January, and February.

Sunday: Has it been tough to wake up this past week? It should have been because the sunrise has been getting a little later since summer started. I know. I know. December 21 was the shortest day of the year. But, because the Earth’s orbit around the Sun is elliptical and not circular, the Earth does not travel at a constant speed. It moves faster when it is closer to the Sun and slower when it is farther away. This leads to the latest sunrise occurring in late December/early January and the earliest sunset occurring in early December. Neither of these happen on the first day of winter. On the first day of winter, however, the interval between sunrise and sunset is the shortest, making it the shortest day of the year. For more information, go to http://goo.gl/SJC5r.

Monday: At 8:30 p.m., Jupiter is six fists above due southeast and Mars is three fists above due east.

Tuesday: 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 two fists above the eastern 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 close to straight overhead. You and fellow stargazers won’t need to wear a long tail or ears to enjoy these stellar cats.

Wednesday: In 1984, American singer Rockwell released the song “Somebody’s Watching Me”, backed up by Michael Jackson. In 2020, NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope released a picture of two bubbles of gas and dust that look like eyes watching you. Stare back at them by going to https://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/image/ssc2020-17a-something-out-there-is-watching-you.

Thursday: Tonight, Venus is as far away from the Sun in the sky as it will get this orbital cycle. Since Venus is in the evening sky, it is east of the Sun so this occurrence is called the greatest eastern elongation. This evening will be the best evening to observe Venus for the next few weeks. Venus is two fists above the southwestern horizon at 6:30 p.m. Saturn is a fist to the upper left of Venus tonight. By mid-April, Venus will be visible in the morning sky.