The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of October 17, 2026

Saturday: Saturn is three and a half fists held upright and at arm’s length above due southeast at 9:30 p.m.

Sunday: The constellation Vulpecula, the little fox, stands nearly six fists 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: At 6:30 a.m., Jupiter is four and a half fists above the southeastern horizon. Mars is one fist to the upper right of Jupiter at this time.

Tuesday: 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 for the next three mornings. 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 in the waxing crescent phase, obscuring dimmer meteorites. 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 miss it these next few mornings, you can catch the tail end of the shower every night until early November. For more information, go to https://earthsky.org/?p=27937.

Wednesday: The bright star Capella is two fists above due northeast at 9:00 p.m.

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 tomorrow 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 10, 2026

Saturday: “I’m a little teapot, short and stout. The galactic center, I pour it out.” (I’m a Little Teapot, astronomy version, 2026.) Despite its great 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 held upright and at arm’s length above the south-southwestern horizon at 8:00 p.m.

Sunday: Mars is feeling very crowded in the sky tonight because it is lined up with the center of the Beehive Cluster. Of course, in real life they are far apart. Mars is a neighboring planet in our solar system and The Beehive Cluster is an open star cluster of over 300 stars about 580 light years away. See the grouping for yourself this morning. They are five and a half fists above the southeastern horizon at 6:30 a.m. The bright planet Jupiter is to the lower left of Mars and The Beehive, four fists above the east-southeastern horizon.

Monday: Vesta, the brightest asteroid, is at opposition tonight. That doesn’t mean the asteroid is spending the night saying, “no”. It does mean tonight is one of the best nights of the year to observe Vesta. First, check out the website for NASA’s Dawn spacecraft which visited Vesta 2011-2012: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/dawn/. Then try to find Vesta in the sky with binoculars. Vesta is three fists above due southeast and a little more than one fist to the lower left of the bright planet Saturn at 10:30 p.m. Find Saturn with your binoculars. Then move them about 1.5 to two binocular fields of view to the lower left. Return to this spot over the next few nights. Vesta will appear to move slightly eastward each night compared to the background stars.

Tuesday: The bright star Antares is one fist to the upper left of the moon, just above due southwest at 7:00 p.m.

Wednesday: It is time to 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.

Thursday: 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 snacks into your parent’s shopping cart, hoping they would not notice.

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 3, 2026

Saturday: This week is World Space Week. Go to https://www.worldspaceweek.org for more information and a listing of key events. I want to highlight https://sheorbitscompany.com, an organization that is pioneering women’s leadership in space exploration. They are sponsoring virtual events for females interested in space.

Sunday: Saturn is in opposition tonight. That doesn’t mean that Saturn is stubborn. Opposition means that Saturn is on the opposite side of the Earth as the Sun. When an object is in opposition, it is at its highest point in the sky during the darkest time of the day. Thus, opposition is typically the best time to observe a planet. Saturn is about three and a half fists held upright and at arm’s length above due south at 1:00 a.m. It is nearly two fists above due southeast at 10:00 p.m. Careful readers of this column may recall that Saturn is in opposition about 12 days later each year: August 1, 2021, August 14, 2022, August 26, 2023, September 7, 2024, and September 20, 2025. An outer planet is in opposition when Earth passes it up as both orbit the Sun. The farther out a planet is, the less it has moved along its orbit, and the closer it is to exactly one year from one Earth passing to the next. For comparison, it is about 18 months between successive oppositions for Mars. Saturn is three fists above due southeast at 10:30 p.m.

Monday: The moon, Mars, and the open star cluster called The Beehive Cluster are in a line about four and a half fists above the east-southeastern horizon at 6:00 a.m. the Beehive Cluster is just to the upper right of the moon and Mars is about a half fist to the upper right of the moon.

Tuesday: The Draconid meteor shower peaks for the next four nights with Thursday 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. Luckily, the moon is in the waning crescent phase, close to new, meaning it won’t interfere much with viewing. 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: Jupiter is three and a half fists above the east-southeastern horizon at 6:00 a.m.

Thursday: The bright star Arcturus is one and a half fists above the west-northwestern horizon at 8:00 p.m.

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.