What's up in the Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of April 15, 2023

Saturday: This week is International Dark Sky Week. Check out the schedule of events at https://idsw.darksky.org/, including many presentations that are broadcast live so you can interact with the presenter. But that doesn’t mean that we can ignore our obligation to minimize stray light for the next 51 weeks. Lights that are aimed upward illuminate the atmosphere and obscure dim objects. Having too much light shining where it shouldn’t is considered light pollution. And just like other forms of pollution, light pollution can be hazardous to our health and the health of other animals. That’s right. Harmful. Watch this National Geographic video for more information: https://youtu.be/V_A78zDBwYE.

Sunday: The waning crescent moon is just above the east-southeastern horizon at 5:30 a.m. Saturn is a half a fist held upright and at arm’s length to the upper right of the moon.

Monday: “The crow rises in the southeast,” said spy number one. “I’m sorry. I don’t recognize that code,” replied spy number two. Spy one exclaimed, “That’s because it’s not a code, you idiot. I’m talking about the constellation Corvus the crow.” This very bad spy movie dialogue is to remind you that Corvus had a very bad life. According to one myth, Corvus brought the god Apollo the news that his girlfriend was seeing someone else. In a classic case of punishing the messenger, Apollo turned the formerly beautifully colored crow black. The box shaped Corvus is one fist above the southeastern horizon at 9:00 p.m.

Tuesday: At 9:00 p.m., very bright Venus is two and a half fists above the western horizon and Mars is five fists above the west-southwestern horizon.

Wednesday: There is an annular solar eclipse in Southeast Asia and Australia in the middle of the day April 20 local time but about 9:00 tonight Pacific Daylight Time. In this case “annular” does not mean yearly occurrence. Annular refers to the ring shape of the Sun. The Moon will be directly between the Earth and the Sun. But it will be relatively far from the Earth meaning it will not appear large enough to fully block the Sun. If you want to read about the eclipse, see a simulation, or watch a live stream, go to https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/solar/2023-april-20. This is one of my favorite astronomy websites.

Thursday: Do people think you have a magnetic personality? The star Cor Caroli understands how you feel. Cor Caroli has one of the strongest magnetic fields among main sequence stars similar to our Sun. This strong magnetic field is thought to produce large sunspots that cause the brightness of Cor Caroli to vary. Cor Caroli is nearly straight overhead at midnight.

Friday: Remember the old saying: April showers bring… meteors. The Lyrid meteor shower peaks this week, with the peak of the peak occurring tonight and tomorrow night before midnight. The meteors appear to come from a point to the right of the bright bluish star Vega in the constellation Lyra the lyre. This point is about three fists above the east-northeast horizon at midnight tonight and close to straight overhead near dawn. The best time to observe the shower is between 11:00 p.m. and moonrise at about 3:00 a.m. Typically, this is one of the least interesting major meteor showers of the year, with 10-20 bright, fast meteors per hour. However, it is also one of the most unpredictable. As recently as 1982, there were 90 meteors visible during a single hour. In addition, the Lyrid meteor shower has historical interest because it was one of the first ones observed. Chinese records say “stars fell like rain” in the shower of 687 B.C. As your mother might say, dress warm and sit in a comfortable chair for maximum enjoyment. Meteors are tiny rocks that hit the Earth and burn up in the atmosphere. For more information, go to http://earthsky.org/?p=158735.

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 April 8, 2023

Saturday: The first day of spring was March 20. The most recent full moon was April 6. That means tomorrow is Easter. The standard way to determine the date of Easter for Western Christian churches is that it is the first Sunday after the full moon that occurs on or after the vernal equinox, also known as the first day of spring. Of course, the other standard way is to look for the date of church services celebrating the resurrection of Jesus. There is no Bible story of an “Easter star”. If there were, Spica would be a pretty good choice. The name Spica comes from the Latin “spica virginis” which means “Virgo’s ear of grain”. Spica represents life-giving sustenance rising after a long winter just like the risen Jesus represents life-giving redemption to Christians. Spica is one and a half fists held upright and at arm’s length above the southeastern horizon at 10:00 p.m. To learn how to calculate the exact date of Easter for any year, go to https://www.assa.org.au/edm.

Sunday: For the next few nights, Venus will be moving by The Pleiades open star cluster in the early evening sky. Tonight The Pleiades is about a thumb width to the upper right of very bright Venus. Both are about two fists above the western horizon. Venus will be moving slightly upward with respect to the background stars each night.

Monday: Astronomers are often fascinated with large objects. Planets that could hold 1000 Earths (Jupiter). Stars that would fill up the entire inner Solar System (Betelgeuse). Galaxies with 400 billion stars (Milky Way). But what about the smallest objects? One of the smallest stars is Proxima Centauri, the closest known star other than our Sun. It is about 12% of the mass of the Sun. Earlier this year, astronomers announced the discovery of a possible third planet orbiting Proxima Centauri indicating that even very small stars can have planets. The smallest theoretically possible star would be about 7.5% of the mass of the Sun. Any smaller and it could not support the nuclear reactions characteristic of stars. For more on small stars, go to http://goo.gl/EHBdOX.

Tuesday: 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. This evening will be the best evening to observe Mercury for the next few weeks. Mercury is one fist above the west-northwestern horizon at 8:30 p.m. Over the next few weeks, Mercury will move toward the Sun in the sky. By late May, it will be barely visible in the morning sky.

Wednesday: The Globe at Night April campaign starts today. Globe at night is a citizen science project to quantify the impact of light pollution on our view of the night sky. Go to https://globeatnight.org/campaigns/ to learn more and participate.

Thursday: Mars is four fists above the western horizon at 10:00 p.m.

Friday: The Lyrid meteor shower peaks next weekend. But there will be increased meteor activity in the vicinity of the constellation Lyra until then. The meteors appear to come from a point to the right of the bright bluish star Vega in the constellation Lyra the lyre. This point is about three fists above the east-northeast horizon at midnight and close to straight overhead near dawn. Go to https://earthsky.org/?p=158735 for more information.

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 April 1, 2023

Saturday: Some people in town today for the Yakima River Canyon Marathon may have been looking for a little running inspiration. While nothing can take the place of a 20 mile run for marathon preparation (I know), certain objects in the night sky are inspiring. In the Bible, Job specifically mentions the star Arcturus, or the bear keeper, to his friend as a sign of God's majesty. He describes God as that "Which maketh Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades, and the chambers (constellations) of the south" (Job 9:9, King James Version). Whatever your religious beliefs, it is clear that Job was impressed with this very bright star. See the star that inspired Job about two and a half fists held upright and at arm’s length above the eastern horizon at 10:00 p.m.

Sunday: Global Astronomy Month (GAM) starts this week. Go to https://my.astronomerswithoutborders.org/programs/global-astronomy-month for more information about events. If you want to take a chance on a spur of the moment event, visit their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/astronomerswithoutborders/ 

Monday: Last week you looked at something fuzzy, the Milky Way. So reward yourself tonight by looking at something sharp and detailed. The OSIRIS-REx mission sent back the highest resolution global map of any Solar System object, the asteroid Bennu. Using pictures taken from just three to five kilometers above the surface, the map has a resolution of five centimeters per pixel, the most detailed map of any object other than Earth. Go to https://www.asteroidmission.org/bennu_global_mosaic/ to download the map.

Tuesday: At 8:30 p.m., there are three bright planets in the western sky. Mercury is a half a fist above the western horizon, very bright Venus is two and a half fists above the western horizon (to the upper left of Mercury), Mars is six fists above the southwestern horizon.

Wednesday: The stars in the Hyades Cluster are all young, as stars are judged, formed in the same cloud of gas and dust a few hundred million years ago. But just as children move away from home, the stars of the Hyades Cluster are slowly drifting apart. Millennia from now, future sky watchers will see these stars as random points of light in the sky and not as a family. I hope they at least call home every so often. For more information, go to https://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/end-hyades-star-cluster/. The Hyades Cluster is two fists above due west at 9:30 p.m.

Thursday: You probably didn’t know this but several British New Wave bands were really into astronomy. Take the band “Dead or Alive” (please). The original lyrics to their song “You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) were actually: “You spin me right round, baby, right round, like the Whirlpool Galaxy, right round, round, round.” (Well, that’s what I thought they were.) The Whirlpool Galaxy was the first galaxy observed to have a spiral shape. Since then, astronomers have discovered many galaxies, including our own Milky Way Galaxy, have a spiral shape. Go to https://esahubble.org/images/heic0506a/ for more information about the Whirlpool Galaxy. Go to your small telescope to find the Whirlpool Galaxy in the night sky. It is in the constellation Canes Venatici, the hunting dogs. At 10:00 p.m., find Alkaid, the end star of the Big Dipper handle, five and a half fists above the east-northeastern horizon. The Whirlpool Galaxy is two fingers to the upper right of Alkaid.

Friday: Saturn is a half a fist above the east-southeastern horizon at 8:00 a.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 March 25, 2023

Saturday: The moon is hanging out with seven sisters this evening. The open star cluster called the Pleiades, also known as the Seven Sisters, is about a half a fist to the right of the waxing crescent moon and about four fists held upright and at arm’s length above the western horizon at 8:30 p.m.

Sunday: Jupiter and Mercury are neighbors, just above due west at 7:45 p.m. Jupiter is on the left, slightly higher and brighter than Mercury. Jupiter is moving towards the Sun in the sky and Mercury is moving away from it, meaning it will be slightly easier to spot over the next two weeks.

Monday: Mars is less than a half a fist to the upper left of the moon in the southwestern sky this evening.

Tuesday: Venus is the bright point of light two fists above due west at 8:30 p.m. Uranus is about a thumb width to the upper left Venus. You’ll need binoculars to see Uranus. Look at this portion of the sky with binoculars for the next few nights. Venus will move upward a lot in your binocular field of view. Tomorrow night, Uranus will be almost directly to the left of Venus. By Thursday night, Uranus will be to the lower left of Venus. Note that Uranus has moved very slightly upward with respect to the background stars. Venus appears to move a lot more than Uranus because Venus is so much closer to Earth.

Wednesday: Two of the best, and certainly the most available, “tools” for viewing the night sky are your eyes. Your eyes let you see the entire sky in just a few seconds. Your eyes can read star charts, decipher astronomy apps, and spot meteors while your friend is still setting up her tripod. Your naked eyes are not as effective as gathering light. They work well when the light source is comparatively bright and the detailed features are fairly large. It’s best to practice on a special Solar System body known scientifically as the Magnificent Optical Object of Nearness. Artists such as Jan van Eyck and Leonardo da Vinci produced the first realistic naked eye depictions of the Magnificent Optical Object of Nearness. This week you can use your own eyes to observe evidence of violent collisions and ancient lava flows. For more information on what to observe on the Magnificent Optical Object of Nearness, better known as the Moon, go to http://goo.gl/JLhraO.

Thursday: Signs of spring: flower buds, leaves on the trees, beetle larvae, and the Spring Triangle. The bright stars Regulus, Arcturus, and Spica rise as evening starts. By 10:00 p.m., Regulus is five and a half fists above the south-southeastern horizon, Arcturus is two and a half fists above due east, and Spica is one fist above the east-southeastern horizon. For more on the Spring Triangle, go to http://tiny.cc/ep7vtz.

Friday: The Milky Way is pretty easy to spot in the early spring sky. Just look up. Everything you see in the sky, including that bird that just startled you, is in the Milky Way. But, even the path of densely packed stars in the plane of our galaxy that look like a river of milk is easy to find. Face due west at 9:00 p.m. in a fairly open area. The fuzzy Milky Way path starts due south, moves upward past the bright star Sirius, near Mars, towards the bright star Capella, through W-shaped Cassiopeia and down to due north where the bright star Deneb sits just above the 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.

The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of March 18, 2023

Saturday: Many artists have sung the song “Blue Moon”. But few have sung the song “Blue Planet”. It goes, in part “Blue Planet, you saw me standing with 27 others. Rolling around like a barrel. Without close sisters or brothers.” It’s about the planet Uranus, which orbits the Sun in a rolling motion and has 27 moons. Every one of Uranus’ moons is named after characters in works by William  Shakespeare or Alexander Pope. Uranus is three fists held upright and at arms length above the western at 8:30 p.m., easily visible with binoculars. First find Venus, the bright point of light two fists above due west. Move your binoculars to the upper left about two binocular fields of view until you see a small trapezoid consisting of four points of light of similar brightness. The uppermost point of light is Uranus. Return to this same spot for the next few nights. If the point you are looking at moves compared to the neighboring points of light, you are looking at Uranus.

Sunday: The thin waning crescent moon is one fist above the southeastern horizon at 8:00 a.m. Saturn is a half a fist to the upper left of the moon. Wait a minute. You’re asking, “Can I see Saturn while the Sun is up?” Yes, you can. First find the moon with binoculars. With the moon in the lower right portion of your field of view, Saturn will be in the upper left. It would be very difficult to see Saturn without binoculars. But you can try.

Monday: Look up in the sky. It’s a plane. It’s a bird. No, it’s the vernal equinox. The vernal equinox!? Spring starts at 2:20 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time. The first day of spring is often called the vernal equinox. This label for the day is misleading. The vernal equinox is actually the point in the sky where the Sun’s apparent path with respect to the background stars (called the ecliptic) crosses the line that divides the stars into northern and southern celestial hemispheres (called the celestial equator). This point is in the constellation Pisces the fishes. At the vernal equinox, the Sun is moving from the southern region of background stars to the northern region. 

Because the Earth slowly wobbles like a spinning top, the vernal equinox is slowly moving into the constellation Aquarius. By the year 2597, the vernal equinox will reach the constellation Aquarius and the “Age of Aquarius” will begin. Until then, we’ll be in “the age of Pisces”.

Tuesday: If you want to put somebody off, tell her or him to wait until Deneb sets. At Ellensburg’s latitude of 47 degrees, Deneb is a circumpolar star meaning it never goes below the horizon. At 9:35 p.m., it will be as close as it gets to the horizon, about two degrees above due north. Watch it reach this due north position about 4 minutes earlier each night.

Wednesday: Jupiter is less than a half a fist to the lower right of the moon, low in the western sky at 8:00 p.m. People in northern South America can observe an occultation, in which the moon moves between the Earth and Jupiter in the sky.

Thursday: Venus is about a half a fist to the upper left of the moon, low in the western sky at 8:00 p.m. People in  parts of Asia and Africa can observe an occultation, in which the moon moves between the Earth and Venus in the sky.

Friday: If you know exactly where to look in the sky, you can see a few bright planets when the Sun is out. The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, or SOHO, is always watching the sky when the Sun is out… because it is always watching the Sun! Most of the SOHO images are filtered images of the Sun’s photosphere, the top of the visible layer. But two images, the LASCO C2 and C3, place a mask over the Sun in order to observe the Sun’s corona as well as solar system objects that pass near the Sun. For the next few days, Venus passes right below the Sun and is visible in one or both of the LASCO images. It is the bright spot with the long streak on either side due to overexposure. For more about using SOHO to observe Solar System objects, go to https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/planets-and-comets-cant-hide-from-sohos-eye/.

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 March 11, 2023

Saturday:  Don't forget to set your clocks ahead one hour tonight for the annual ritual called daylight savings. Daylight savings originated in the United States during World War I to save energy for the war effort. But a recent study by two economists shows that switching to daylight savings time may actually lead to higher utility bills. When the economists compared the previous few years of energy bills in the section of Indiana that just started observing daylight savings, they discovered that switching to daylight savings cost Indiana utility customers $8.6 million in electricity. In an even more important consequence of daylight savings, Stanley Coren of the University of British Columbia discovered a 7% jump in traffic accidents on the Monday after we "spring ahead". Blame it on the lost hour of sleep. And, sky watchers will lose even more sleep because the sky stays light for an additional hour.

Sunday: Avast ye matey. Swab the poop deck. Pirates love astronomy. In fact, the term “poop” in poop deck comes from the French word for stern (poupe) which comes from the Latin word Puppis. Puppis is a constellation that represents the raised stern deck of Argo Navis, the ship used by Jason and the Argonauts in Greek mythology. Argo Nevis was an ancient constellation that is now split into the constellations Puppis, Vela and Carina. The top of Puppis is two fists held upright and at arm’s length above due south and about a fist and a half to the left of the bright star Sirius at 9:45 p.m. Zeta Puppis, the hottest, and thus the bluest, naked eye star in the sky at 40,000 degrees Celsius, is about a half a fist above due south at this time.

Monday: “Oooo, they’re little runaways. Orion’s stars moved fast. Tried to make a getaway. Ooo-oo, they’re little runaways,” sang Bon Jovi in his astronomical hit “Runaway.  At least that’s what I hear when I listen to the song. After all, it fits the recently calculated trajectory of AE Aurigae, Mu Columbae, and 53 Arietis. Extrapolating the actual motion of these three stars back in time, they were all in the location of the star-forming region called the Orion Nebula a few million years ago. What kicked these stars out? Not paying rent? Excessive partying? No, it was simply gravitational interactions with near-by stars. Find out more about the eviction at http://goo.gl/UeLwKQ. The Orion Nebula is visible with the naked eye from a very dark site, about three fists above the southwestern horizon at 9:00 p.m.

Tuesday: Antares is a fist and a half above due south at 6:00 am. It is about a half a fist to the right of the moon.

Wednesday: Arcturus is two fists above the eastern horizon at 10:30 p.m.

Thursday: Jupiter is a little less than a fist above due west at 8:00 pm. Venus is about a fist and a half to the upper left of Jupiter.

Friday: Ask someone which day in March has the same duration day and night. Go ahead, ask someone. Why are you still reading this? I can wait. If that person said the first day of spring, they are wrong. Today, a few days before the first day of spring, is the date in which day and night are closest in duration in central Washington. There are two main reasons for this. First, the atmosphere acts like a lens, bending light from the Sun above the horizon when the Sun is actually below the horizon. This makes the Sun appear to rise before it actually rises and appear to set after it actually sets. Second, spring starts when the center of the Sun passes through the point called the vernal equinox. But, the Sun is not a point. The upper edge of the Sun rises about a minute before the center of the Sun and the lower edge sets a minute after the center of the Sun. Thus, even if we didn’t have an atmosphere that bends the sunlight, daytime on the first day of spring would still be longer than 12 hours.

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 March 4, 2023

Saturday: “The crow rises in the southeast,” said spy number one. “I’m sorry. I don’t recognize that code,” replied spy number two. Spy one exclaimed, “That’s because it’s not a code, you idiot. I’m talking about the constellation Corvus the crow.” This very bad spy movie dialogue is to remind you that Corvus had a very bad life. According to one myth, Corvus brought the god Apollo the news that his girlfriend was seeing someone else. In a classic case of punishing the messenger, Apollo turned the formerly beautifully colored crow black. The box-shaped Corvus is one fist held upright and at arm’s length above the southeastern horizon at 10:00 p.m.

Sunday: March to-do list: 1) Move clocks ahead an hour for daylight saving time, 2) Start spring cleaning, 3) Discover exoplanets. Hmm. One of these is not like the other. NASA has set up a program through which you can learn about exoplanets, observe exoplanets, analyze their data, and submit it to a repository for astronomers to use for their research. Exoplanets are any planets outside our solar system. For more information about this project, go to https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/exoplanet-watch/.

Monday: Did you get binoculars for the holidays? Like for President’s Day or Martin Luther King, Junior Day? If so, start using them on some top binocular targets found here: http://tiny.cc/5d4rtz. The first item on the list, the Moon, is a great choice this week because it is full tomorrow, meaning it is out all night. One of my favorite binocular objects is the Hyades Open Star Cluster. It is a V-shaped set of stars four fists above the western horizon at 8:00 p.m. The bright star Aldebaran is in the upper left hand portion of the V, just below Aldebaran is the double star system Theta1 and Theta2 Tauri. Theta2 Tauri is a blue giant star and Theta1 Tauri is an orange giant star. Through binoculars, you should get a hint of their color. In the mythology of the Maya, the Theta Tauri pair is known as Chamukuy, meaning “small bird” in the Yucatec Maya language.

Tuesday: Deneb is two and a half degrees above the due north horizon. You can barely fit your thumb between them.

Wednesday: If you ask an astrobiologist for the three most likely places to find evidence of life in the Solar System, other than Earth, they’d probably say Mars, Europa (“Didn’t they sing “The Final Countdown”?”), and Enceladus. Mars makes sense because you know scientists have sent a lot of probes there. Enceladus, one of Saturn’s moons, is an up and coming interest that first piqued astrobiologists’ interest a few years ago when NASA’s Cassini probe discovered jets of water containing organic materials shooting out. Between the pop culture alien hot spot of Mars and the new favorite is Jupiter’s moon Europa. Astronomers first discovered strong evidence of a large water ocean on Europa in 1989 during a Galileo flyby. In the next five years, NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) will be sending spacecraft to Europa. For a preview of the ESA JUICE mission and the NASA Europa Clipper mission, go to https://youtu.be/dAW2uPPS2A4. For a preview of Mars, look nearly seven fists above the southern horizon at 7:00 p.m. Jupiter is one fist above the western horizon, right below the much brighter Venus. Saturn is currently lost in the glare of the Sun and won’t be visible in the sky until the mornings of early April.

Thursday: The bright star Spica is about a finger-width below the moon and about two fists above the southeastern horizon at 11:00 p.m.

Friday: The bright star Arcturus is nearly three fists above due east at 10:30 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.