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

Saturday: Halloween is this Friday. If you need costume ideas, look low in the sky at 7:15 p.m. Arcturus is about one fist held upright and at arm’s length above the western horizon. In The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Arcturus is home to giant ships called Arcturan Megafreighters and oversized megafauna like the Arcturan Megaleech and Arcturan Megacamel. Capella is about one fist above the northeastern horizon. In the second season episode of Star Trek: The Original Series called Friday’s Child, the Enterprise goes to Capella IV to negotiate a mining contract for a valuable mineral. While there, they get tangled up with warring factions and a Klingon. Inspiration from these two stars might help you win the costume contest as you go dressed as Captain Kirk, a Klingon, or an Arcturan Megaleech. For more about stars and planets featured in popular fiction, go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stars_and_planetary_systems_in_fiction.

Sunday: Saturn is three fists above due southeast at 8:00 p.m.

Monday: According to the “One world, group hug, love everyone” philosophy, political borders are human-made and can’t be seen from space so why can’t we all just get along. According to real world pragmatic discoveries, some human-made political borders CAN be seen from space. Since 2003, India has illuminated its border with Pakistan to prevent illegal crossings. In 2011, astronaut Ron Garan took a picture of that border from the International Space Station. For more information, including the photo, go to http://goo.gl/mY8xG.

Tuesday: Did you know that moons and dwarf planets share some similar features? The five largest moons of Uranus have the same heat signatures as the largest dwarf planets such as Pluto and Eris. That means they are relatively dense and don’t immediately radiate away all their daytime-absorbed heat at night. Read more about Uranian moons at https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/uranian-moons-are-like-dwarf-planets/. Uranus can easily be seen with typical binoculars. It is about a half a fist to the lower right of the open star cluster called the Pleiades. Move the Pleiades to the upper left of your binoculars field of view. Uranus will be on the lower right. Uranus is the object that will have moved over the course of a few nights.

Wednesday: Mercury will be as far away from the Sun in the sky as it will get this orbital cycle. This "farthest away" point is known as the planet's greatest elongation. Since Mercury is in the evening sky, it is east of the Sun, so this occurrence is called the greatest eastern elongation. Mercury is right above the southwestern horizon at 6:15 p.m. Over the next two weeks, Mercury will move toward the Sun in the sky. By late November, it will be visible in the morning sky.

Thursday: At 7:00 a.m., Venus is about half a fist above the east-southeastern horizon and Jupiter is six fists above the south-southwestern horizon.

Friday: Halloween weekend is a great time to celebrate the dead. Dead stars, that is. Black holes and neutron stars are the end of life for super massive stars. But intermediate mass stars such as our Sun end up as white dwarfs. After fusing hydrogen into helium for most of its life and fusing helium into heavier elements for a brief period at the end of its life, the Sun will end up with a core of heavier elements that can no longer produce energy through nuclear fusion. Without the outward radiation pressure from fusion energy resisting the inward pull of gravity, the Sun will end up as a super-dense sphere of atoms in which the electrons are squished onto the nuclei. It will be an object with nearly all its mid-life mass but in a volume about the size of the Earth. The easiest white dwarf to see is in the triple star system called Keid, from the Arabic word “qayd” meaning eggshells. Learn more about Keid, also called 40 Eridani, including map of how to find it at

https://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/trick-or-treat-with-white-dwarfs/. At midnight (scary), Keid is two and a half fists above due southeast. You’ll need a small telescope to see it. First find Rigel, the brightest star in the constellation Orion. It is one and a half fists above the east-southeastern horizon. Then use binoculars to find the right area. With Rigel at the bottom of your field of view. There should be a star near the top of your girls of view that is about one sixth as bright. This star is called Cursa. Next, move your binoculars up and to the right about one and a half field of view diameters. Look for two stars close together, each about one third as bright as Cursa. Finally, move your binoculars straight over to the right about one and a half field of view diameters. The lower of these two stars is Keid or 40 Eridani A. You’ll need a telescope to see the white dwarf, called 40 Eridani B.

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 October 18, 2025

 Saturday: Comet Lemmon (C/2025 A6) is still shaping up to be one of the brightest comets of the year. At 8:00 p.m., it is to the left of the star Cor Caroli, about one and a half fists above the northwestern horizon. You can also follow along the curve of the Big Dipper handle with binoculars. When you get to the end of the handle, move your binoculars downward towards the northwestern horizon. There is an interactive sky map at https://theskylive.com/c2025a6-info.

Sunday: The constellation Vulpecula, the little fox, stands nearly six fists held upright and at arm’s length above due southwest at 9:00 p.m. It is in the middle of the Summer Triangle, which is defined by the bright stars Vega, Deneb, and Altair. First find Deneb, the bright star nearly straight overhead. It is at the tail of the constellation Cygnus the swan. Move your eyes down towards the horizon and through the long neck of the swan. The fox is so faint that you need very dark skies to see it. While dim, it has a lot to offer astronomers. The first pulsar ever discovered is in Vulpecula. So is one of the closest extrasolar planets with water in its atmosphere.

Monday: The Orionid meteor shower consists of the Earth colliding with pieces of the remains of Halley's Comet's tail. This shower peaks after midnight tonight until dawn tomorrow. This is not a meteor shower that typically results in a meteor storm. There will be about 15-20 meteors per hour, many more meteors than are visible on a typical night but not the storm that some showers bring. The Moon will be new, meaning dark skies and good viewing for the entire night. Meteor showers are named after the constellation from which the meteors appear to originate. These meteors appear to come from a point in Orion, the hunter. This point is about one fist held upright and at arm’s length above due east at midnight. You can follow this point throughout the night as it will remain one fist above the prominent reddish star Betelgeuse (pronounced Bet'-el-jews). The Orionid meteors are fast - up to 40 miles per second. If you fall asleep tonight, you can catch the tail end of the shower every night until early November. For more information, go to https://earthsky.org/?p=27937.

Tuesday: Saturn is three fists above the southeastern horizon at 8:30 p.m.

Wednesday: Venus is about a half a fist above the eastern horizon at 6:30 a.m. Jupiter is six fists above the southern horizon at this time.

Thursday: What time is teatime? Certainly not during an autumn evening. The constellation Sagittarius the archer, with its signature teapot shape, is sinking into the southwestern horizon. By 8:00 p.m., the handle is on top, and the spout is touching the horizon ready to pour that last cup of tea.

Friday: Halloween is a week from today so make sure you load up on peanut clusters, almond clusters, and open star clusters this week. That last one will be easy (and cheap… actually free) because two of the most prominent open star clusters in the sky are easily visible in the autumn sky. The sideways V-shaped Hyades Cluster is two fists above due east at 10:00 p.m. Containing over 300 stars; the Hyades cluster is about 150 light years away and 625 million years old. The Pleiades Cluster is a little more than three fists above due east. It has three times as many stars as the Hyades Cluster and is younger. Compared to our 5-billion-year-old Sun, the 100-million-year age of the Pleiades is infant-like.

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 October 11, 2025

Saturday: “I’m a little teapot, short and stout. The galactic center, I pour it out.” (I’m a Little Teapot, astronomy version, 2025.) Despite its enormous size and importance, the center of our Milky Way galaxy and its giant black hole remain hidden to the naked eye behind thick clouds of gas and dust. By plotting the orbits of stars near the middle of the galaxy, astronomers have determined that the black hole’s mass is equal to about 4.5 million Suns. While you can’t see the actual galactic center, you can gaze in the direction of the center by looking just to the right of the teapot asterism in the constellation Sagittarius. This point is about a half a fist above the south-southwestern horizon at 8:00 p.m., in line with the moon in the sky.

Sunday: It is good to plan ahead so start thinking about the Orionid meteor shower. This shower, which consists of the earth colliding with pieces of the remains of Halley's Comet's tail, peaks on the morning of October 21 but produces meteors from early October until early November. These meteors appear to come from a point in Orion, the hunter. This point is about one fist above the eastern horizon at midnight. You can follow this point throughout the night as it will remain near the prominent reddish star Betelgeuse (pronounced Bet'-el-jews). The Orionid meteors are fast - up to 40 miles per second. For more information about the Orionids, go to https://earthsky.org/?p=27937.

Monday: Saturn is three fists above due southeast at 9:00 p.m.

Tuesday: Jupiter is to the upper right of the waning crescent moon in the southeastern sky at 6:00 a.m. At this same time, Venus is half a fist above the eastern horizon.

Wednesday: Look up in the sky. It’s a bird. It’s a plane. It’s a dolphin. A dolphin? The constellation Delphinus the dolphin is nearly six fists above due south at 8:00 p.m. The constellation’s two brightest stars are called Sualocin and Rotanev, which is Nicolaus Venator spelled backwards. Venator worked at the Palermo Observatory in Italy in the mid nineteenth century. He slipped these names into Giuseppe Piazzi’s star catalog without him noticing. Sort of like when you would sneak cookies into your parent’s shopping cart, hoping they would not notice.

Thursday: Comet Lemmon (C/2025 A6) may be one of the brightest comets of the year. At 6:00 a.m., it is near the star Cor Caroli, about two and a half fists above the northeastern horizon. First, find the star at the bottom of the Big Dipper handle. Cor Caroli is about one fist to the right of that star. Comet Lemmon will be a little above Cor Caroli. Comet Lemmon will be closest to Earth on October 21. Read more about it at https://earthsky.org/space/comet-lemmon-best-comet-of-2025-finder-maps/.

Friday: Rho Cassiopeiae is the most distant star that can be seen with the naked eye by most people. It is about 8,200 light years away. That means that the light that reaches your eyes from that star left over 8,000 years ago, before the beginning of time according to the Byzantine calendar. Rho Cassiopeiae is nearly straight overhead at 11:00 p.m., just above the zigzag line that marks the constellation Cassiopeia.

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 October 4, 2025

Saturday: Tonight is International Observe the Moon night. Hopefully, you can go outside and look up between 6:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m. If not, there are many virtual activities. For more information, go to https://moon.nasa.gov/observe-the-moon-night/

Sunday: At 8:00 p.m., the moon and Saturn are two fists held upright and at arm’s length above the east-southeastern horizon. Saturn remains below the moon throughout the night.

Monday: Tonight’s full moon is the Harvest Moon. The Harvest Moon is the full moon closest to the autumnal equinox. Usually that occurs in September. Approximately every three years, it occurs in October, replacing the Hunter’s Moon.

Tuesday: The Draconid meteor shower peaks for the next three nights with tomorrow night being the best. The meteors appear to come from a point in the head of Draco, the dragon constellation. This point is nearly straight overhead at 7:00 p.m. tonight. This point remains near the trapezoid-shaped head of Draco throughout the night. Unlike most meteor showers, this one is best observed in the early evening rather than after midnight. Call this the “early to bed” meteor shower. Draconid meteors are slow moving which means you will have an easy time differentiating true Draconid meteors, from Comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner, from the stray grains of dust that happen to enter the Earth’s atmosphere every day and night. Unfortunately, the moon is full, meaning most of the dimmer meteors will be obscured. For everything you need to know about the Draconid meteor shower, go to https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/everything-you-need-to-know-draconid-meteor-shower

Wednesday: Mars is just above the west-southwestern horizon at 7:00 p.m.

Thursday: In 2020, astronomers announced that they detected phosphine, a possible biosignature of life, in the upper atmosphere of Venus. Although the surface of Venus is inhospitable, astronomers have long speculated that the upper atmosphere could harbor life. Not Cloud City life from The Empire Strikes Back but maybe microbial life. In 2022, astronomers concluded that the original scientists found the signature of sulfur dioxide, not life. In 2023, the private company Rocket Lab published details about the first privately funded mission to another planet - their trip to Venus. The launch has been delayed until at least 2026. This Venus storyline is an excellent example of science at work. In less than two years, science went from “we may have found a marker for life on Venus” to “it is unclear if we found a marker for life” to “we probably didn’t find a marker for life” to “let’s visit Venus to closely study the thing we thought was a marker for life”. Do an internet search of the words Venus and phosphine and read the articles to follow the story. To get yourself in the mood, go outside at 6:15 a.m. Venus is a fist above the eastern horizon at this time. Read more about the potential mission at https://www.space.com/the-universe/venus/the-1st-private-mission-to-venus-comes-together-ahead-of-possible-2026-launch-photos

Friday: The Milky Way makes a faint white trail from due northeast, by the moon, through straight overhead to due southwest at 9:00 p.m. Starting in the northeast, the Milky Way “passes through” the prominent constellations Auriga the charioteer, Cassiopeia the queen, and Cygnus the swan with its brightest star, Deneb, nearly straight overhead. After Cygnus, you’ll see Aquila the eagle with its brightest star Altair about four and a half fists above the southwest horizon.

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.