The Ellensburg sky for the week of 7/28/12

Saturday: The Southern Delta Aquarid meteor shower peaks tonight and early tomorrow morning. Meteor showers are named after the constellation from which the meteors appear to originate. “Hi de hi de hi de hi”, these meteors appear to come from a point in Aquarius near the star Delta Aquarii, also known as Skat. Ho de ho de ho de ho, this point is about one and a half fists held upright and at arm’s length above the southeast horizon at 1 am tomorrow morning. (The singer Cab Calloway must have had an interest in this star.) You can follow this point throughout the night as it will remain a fist above Fomalhaut, the brightest star in that section of the sky. The best time to view the shower is after midnight between moonset and dawn.

Sunday: School has been out for over a month so it is time to start reviewing your geometric shapes. Let’s start with the right triangle that is a fist above the west-southwest horizon at 10 p.m. The bluish star Spica is at the right angle, in the lower left corner of the triangle. Saturn is a half a fist above Spica and Mars a fist to the right of Spica.

Monday: Jupiter, the bright star Aldebaran, the Hyades open star cluster, Venus, and a small special guest are low in the eastern morning sky this week. At 5 am, Venus, the brightest point of light in the sky, is two fists above the east horizon. Jupiter is about a fist and a half to the upper right of Venus. The Hyades open star cluster makes a small rightward-facing V to the lower right of Jupiter. The bright star Aldebaran is at the lowest point of the V although it is not actually a part of the Hyades cluster.

Tuesday: Most stars are so far away that they look like points of light, even through a telescope. But in 2006, Altair, one of our nearest neighbor stars, became the first main sequence to have a picture taken of its surface features. You can’t see those features with the naked eye. But you can see Altair nearly five fists above the southeast horizon at 11 p.m.

Wednesday: In Scotland, August 1 was known as Lammas, the festival of the first wheat harvest of the year. You can remember this by looking at Spica, named after the Latin word for “ear of wheat”, one fist held upright and at arm’s length above the west-southwest horizon at 9:30 p.m. August 1 is known as a cross-quarter day, a day approximately half way between an equinox and a solstice.

Thursday: Have you ever built a house? You probably had some material left over. If scientists studied that material, they could learn a lot about how your house was constructed, the origin of your house. In fact, studying the building scraps would probably teach them more about the origin of your house than if they studied your house in its current state. After all, your house has been repainted and remodeled. Asteroids are the leftover material from the origin of our Solar System. Scientists study them to learn more about how the Solar System was formed. For the past year, the NASA probe called Dawn has been gathering data from Vesta, one of the largest asteroids in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. For more information about Dawn, go to http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/. For visual confirmation of Vesta, go outside at 4:30 am and look at the Hyades cluster through your binoculars. Vesta will be one of the dimmest points of light in the middle of the V, just above Theta 1 and Theta 2 Tauri, two stars of similar brightness lined up nearly one on top of the other in the bottom leg of the V.

Friday: Since you got up early yesterday to look for Vesta, you might as well get up early today to see one of the most recognizable constellations rise. Orion, with its 3-star belt and bright red shoulder star Betelgeuse, peeks up above the eastern horizon at 5 am. In fact, Betelgeuse is exactly one fist above due east at 5 a.m.

The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.

The Ellensburg sky for the week of 7/21/12

Saturday: The Southern Delta Aquarid meteor shower peaks for the next few nights and early mornings with the greatest concentration of meteors being visible next weekend. Meteor showers are named after the constellation from which the meteors appear to originate. These meteors appear to come from a point in Aquarius near the star Delta Aquarii, also known as Skat. This point is about one and a half fists held upright and at arm’s length above the southeast horizon at 1 am tomorrow morning. You can follow this point throughout the night as it will remain a fist above Fomalhaut, the brightest star in that section of the sky. The best time to view the shower is after midnight between moonset and dawn. As you 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.

Sunday: Altair, at one corner of the Summer Triangle, is four fists above the southeast horizon at 11 p.m. Altair is one of the closest bright stars, so close that fictional astronauts visited a planet orbiting Altair in the 1956 movie “Forbidden Planet”.

Monday: Hot enough for you? If not, astronomers using NASA’s Spitzer Space telescope think they have discovered a molten planet orbiting a star almost right next door on an astronomical scale – only 33 light years away. This planet is about two-thirds the diameter of Earth and is VERY close to its parent star – about 2% of the Earth-Sun distance. The star, GJ 436, is a dim red dwarf star. For more information about this discovery, read the NASA press release at http://goo.gl/9nY8w.

Tuesday: How is tonight’s west-southwest sky similar to a Johns Hopkins University classroom? Both are crowded with bright objects. Tonight at 10 p.m., the moon sits below a right triangle featuring the bluish star Spica, the orangish Saturn a half a fist above Spica, and the reddish Mars a fist to the right of Spica. Six weeks from today, one of Ellensburg’s “bright stars” will be lighting up a Johns Hopkins classroom.

Wednesday: Do you want an easy way to find due north? A compass points to magnetic north, which is a few degrees off of true geographic north. Well, tonight’s your night. Capella, the brightest star in the constellation Auriga the Charioteer, is due north at exactly 10:09 p.m. It looks like a bright light on a pole on the north ridge because is only about one degree above the horizon.

Thursday: If you want to show your loved ones a celestial sign that they should hang up their clothes, show them Brocchi's Cluster, commonly known as the Coat Hanger cluster because of its resemblance to an upside down coat hanger. The cluster is six fists above the southeast horizon at 10:30 p.m., midway between Altair and Vega, the two brightest stars in the Summer Triangle. You'll need binoculars to make out the shape. First find Altair four fists above the southeast horizon. Slowly move your binoculars up toward Vega. You will run into the coat hanger along the way. And while you are at it, put away your shoes.

Friday: Hercules stands almost directly overhead at 10:30 this evening. Four moderately bright stars form a lopsided square that represents his body, while his head points southward.

The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.

The Ellensburg sky for the week of 7/14/12

Saturday: Being in a coma is a bad thing. Looking at the Coma Star Cluster is a good thing. The Coma Star Cluster is an open cluster of about 50 stars that takes up more space in the sky than 10 full Moons. It looks like a fuzzy patch with the naked eye. Binoculars reveal dozens of sparkling stars. A telescope actually diminishes from the spectacle because the cluster is so big and the telescope’s field of view is so small. The Coma Star Cluster is in the faint constellation Coma Berenices (ba-ron-ice’-ez) or Queen Berenice’s hair. Queen Berenice of Egypt cut off her beautiful hair as a sacrifice to the gods for the safe return of her husband Ptolemy III from battle. The Coma Star Cluster is about three fists held upright and at arm’s length above the west horizon at 11:00 p.m.

Sunday: This morning at 4:30, the waning crescent moon will be in between Jupiter and Venus, one and a half to two fists above the east horizon. Throughout Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and central Asia, the Moon will actually line up with Jupiter, blocking it from viewers in those locations. This is called an occultation.

Monday: The long summer days remind us to take some time to safely observe the Sun. The best way to do that is to go to http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/ and watch the great images and videos that come from the Solar Dynamics Observer, or SDO for short. We are approaching a sunspot maximum scheduled to peak 2013. So what, you say? Sunspots and associated phenomena greatly influence the strength of solar flares. The strongest flares can affect satellites orbiting the Earth and even electronics on the Earth’s surface.

Tuesday: Say "Cheese". 162 years ago today, Vega, in the constellation Lyra the lyre, became the first star ever photographed. The photograph was done at the Harvard Observatory using the daguerreotype process. Vega is the third brightest nighttime star we can see in Ellensburg, behind Sirius and Arcturus. Vega is nearly straight overhead at 11:00 tonight.

Wednesday: Spica, Saturn, and Mars make a skinny almost-right triangle low in the southwest sky at 10 p.m. Saturn is two fists above the southwest horizon. Spica, at the right angle of the triangle, is about a half a fist below it. Mars is about a fist and a half to the right of Spica.

Thursday: Pluto is not taking its “demotion” to dwarf planet lying down. Instead, it is proving to still be an interesting object to study by moving up on the list of solar system objects with moons.  Last week, astronomers announced the discovery of a fifth moon orbiting Pluto. This moon, with a diameter of about 10 miles, orbits in the same plane as Pluto’s other four moons. This indicates that a large object collided with the dwarf planet a long time ago, forming a collection of debris that didn’t have enough energy to leave the gravitational pull of Pluto. For more information about this discovery, go to http://goo.gl/zzYfH.

Friday: Take a two and a half hour walk. Too long, you say? Forty-three years ago today, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took the first ever walk by humans on another world. They spend two and a half hours setting up scientific instruments and collecting rocks for study back on Earth. Michael Collins orbited the Moon in the spacecraft the three astronauts would use to return to Earth.

The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.

The Ellensburg sky for the week of 7/7/12

Saturday: At 10 p.m., the bright star Regulus is a little less than one fist held upright and at arm’s length above the west horizon. But, who is this Regulus? He has many potential identities. The most interesting from a pop culture standpoint is Regulus Black, the brother of Sirius Black who is Harry Potter’s godfather. Regulus Black was a former follower of Voldemort, the bad guy of the Harry Potter series. However, Regulus tried to dissociate himself from Voldemort and was killed. He would be in the pile of forgotten Harry Potter characters except that he is so interesting. Also, in the sixth book, Harry found an important note written by someone known only by the initials R.A.B. Hmmm. R.A.B. Regulus A. Black perhaps? Summer is a great time to read the books. Just seeing the movies is not good enough.

Sunday: But what does the “A” stand for? Anthony? Abercrombie? Alfonzo? Not astronomical enough. It stands for Arcturus, the second brightest star visible in the nighttime sky in Washington and at Hogwarts. Arcturus is five fists above the southwest horizon at 10 a.m. The bright star Spica and Saturn are halfway between Arcturus and the southwest horizon and about a fist and a half from each other. Spica is the slightly brighter object on the left within the pair.

Monday: Bellatrix Lestrange is Sirius Black’s cousin. But, far from being kissing cousins. They are killing cousins. Bellatrix kills Sirius in a fight at the Ministry of Magic. Bellatrix the star is the third brightest star in the constellation Orion the hunter. You can find it a half a fist above the east horizon at 4:30 am. But, don’t turn you back on it!

Tuesday: Of course, Bellatrix is in cahoots with “he who must not be named”. Now, that’s a poor sentence, using an obscure synonym for “conspiring” and a non-specific reference. I must be under the curse “writicus dreadfulium”. Clearly this is the work of Tom Riddle, whose mother is named Merope Gaunt. Merope is a star in the Pleiades, an open star cluster about two fists above the east-northeast horizon at 4 a.m.

Wednesday: Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter’s young nemesis, is related to Sirius Black. Draco’s mother, Narcissa Black (Sirius’ cousin) helped develop a plan to trap Harry at the Ministry of Magic in the fifth book. Draco’s namesake, the constellation Draco the dragon is one of the largest constellations in the sky, winding around the North Star. Draco’s head is a four-sided figure nearly straight overhead at 11 p.m.

Thursday: Fred and George Weasley are the best known twins in the Harry Potter universe. Mars, Saturn and the bright star Spica are hoping to be well-known triplets in the southwestern sky at 10 p.m. Spica is two fists above due southwest, Saturn is a half a fist above Spica, and Mars is about two fists to the right of the planetary pair.

Friday: Not every woman in the Black family is evil. Since this is Friday the 13^th, let’s focus on the good. Andromeda Black, Bellatrix’s sister, is a good witch and the mother of Tonks, a young witch from the last few Harry Potter books. (If these Harry Potter references are confusing, talk to a young adolescent about them.) Andromeda the constellation is an interesting one. It contains the Andromeda galaxy, the most distant object visible with the naked eye from a dark site. To locate the Andromeda Galaxy, first find the Great Square of Pegasus. At 11:00 p.m., the left hand corner of the square is about two fists above the east-northeast horizon. Less than two fists to the left and down a little bit is another star the same brightness as the star at the corner of the square. From that star, hop about a half a fist up to a star that is about one fourth as bright. Less than another half fist in the same direction is a fuzzy oval patch of light known as the Andromeda Galaxy. The galaxy is impressive to see in binoculars. It consists of about 400 billion stars and is 2.2 million light years away.

The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week

The Ellensburg sky for the week of 6/30/12

Saturday: The constellation Cepheus the king is about four fists held upright and at arm’s length above the northeast horizon at 11 pm. Cassiopeia the queen is about one and a half below her husband Cepheus.  Cassiopeia looks like the letter “W” and Cepheus looks like a house on its side with the roof peak pointing towards the west. Cassiopeia and Cepheus revolve around the North Star every night like a happy couple going through life together.

Sunday: Wednesday night, while you are looking at an explosion of fireworks, the NASA spacecraft Kepler may be looking at an “explosion” of exoplanets. So far, Kepler has found 74 planets whose presence has been confirmed by other means and evidence of 2,321 planet candidates. Something is called a planet candidate when the light from a star being observed by Kepler dims in a systematic way. Astronomers still need to compare the pattern of dimming with the potential pattern of star wobble caused by being tugged on by one or more planets before they can say for certain that they have actually found planets orbiting these stars. But if even half of these stars show the characteristic wobble, it will more than double the number of planets known to orbit other stars, also known as exoplanets. And this is only the beginning. The Kepler spacecraft is monitoring the brightness of over 156,000 stars in the constellations Cygnus the swan and Lyra the lyre. This region is midway between the bright stars Deneb and Vega. It is about the size of your hand held at arm’s length and is about six fists held upright and at arm’s length above due east at 11 p.m. For more information about the Kepler mission, go to http://kepler.nasa.gov/.

Monday: Last week, I wrote about Mizar. This week, I need to warn you not to confuse Mizar with its rhyming brother Izar in the constellation Bootes. Izar is also a binary star with about the same apparent brightness. And both were featured in different episodes of Star Trek. Izar was featured in the Star Trek episode “Whom Gods Destroy” from the original series. It is the base of Fleet Captain Garth, a former big shot in the federation and one of Kirk’s heroes before he went insane. Garth kidnaps Kirk and Spock before eventually being out smarted. Mizar doesn’t play as big a role in its episode. It is the star of the home world of one of the alien species in The Next Generation episode “Allegiance”. Izar is one fist above the bright star Arcturus and seven fists above the south horizon at 10 p.m. Mizar is seven fists above the northwest horizon at this time.

Tuesday: July is typically the month when the antlers of a young buck push out of its head so some Native American groups call this month’s full moon the Full Buck Moon. Tonight, the Full Buck Moon is in the constellation Sagittarius the archer.

Wednesday: Hot enough for you? Don’t blame the Earth-Sun distance. Surprisingly, the overall temperature of the Earth is slightly higher in July, when the Earth is farthest from the Sun, than in January, when it is closest. That’s because in July, the Northern Hemisphere is tilted towards the Sun. (This is the real cause of the seasons.) The Northern Hemisphere has more land than the Southern Hemisphere. Thus, in July, the large amount of Northern Hemisphere land heats up the entire Earth about two degrees Celsius warmer than in January. In January, the watery Southern Hemisphere is tilted toward the Sun. But, water does not heat up as fast as land so the Earth is a few degrees cooler. The distance between the Earth and Sun is its greatest today, 152.1 million kilometers. This is called aphelion from the Greek prefix “apo” meaning “apart” and Helios, the Greek god of the Sun.

Thursday: Saturn and Mars are both in the constellation Virgo for the next few weeks. At 11 p.m., Saturn is two fists above the southwest horizon and a half a fist above the bright bluish star Spica. The reddish planet Mars is a little more than a fist above the west-southwest horizon.

Friday: The bright star Antares at the heart of Scorpius the scorpion is a fist and a half above the south horizon at 11 p.m.

The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.

The Ellensburg sky for the week of 6/23/12

Saturday: Don’t wait until the 4^th of July to go to those wimpy firecracker shows. Find the hypergiant star Rho Cassiopeiae. Astronomers think that Rho Cassiopeiae will likely go supernova (explode) in the near future. Of course, for stars, near future might mean today. It might mean 20,000 years from now. Rho Cassiopeiae is in the constellation Cassiopeia the queen. At 11:00 tonight, Cassiopeia looks like the letter “W” about three fists held upright and at arm’s length above the northeast horizon. Rho Cassiopeiae is about a finger’s width to the right of the rightmost star in the “W”. Once you find it you’ll be thinking, “Big deal, I can hardly see it.” Although it is barely visible to the naked eye, it is actually very bright. It is the 20^th most luminous star in the sky, a whopping 550,000 times more luminous than the Sun.

Sunday: Go outside and find the bright star Regulus, about a fist to the right of the Moon at 11 p.m.

Monday: Mars is less than a fist above Moon at 11 p.m. Since you also observed that the Moon was near Regulus last night…. You did observe the Moon last night, didn’t you? I asked you to. A civilized society thrives because its people honor the reasonable requests made by others. If you just say “yes” and ‘no” whenever you feel like it, human interactions grind to a halt. Okay, enough with the guilt trip. Back to astronomy. Since you also observed that the Moon was near Regulus last night, you can approximate how far it appeared to move. It moved a little more than one fist. Since one fist held at arm’s length subtends an angle of 10 degrees. The Moon moved about 13 degrees through the sky. In 28 days, the Moon will have moved about 360 degrees (13 degrees/day X 28 days). 360 degrees brings it back to where it started. Thus, making one simple measurement, how far the Moon moves through the sky in one day, you can determine the length of the lunar cycle.

Tuesday: “If you don’t maneuver more carefully, we are going to crash.” How often do you hear that while driving? Well, the Milky Way Galaxy is going to hear that a lot over the next four billion years. After carefully analyzing the motion of the Andromeda Galaxy, astronomers have determined that the Andromeda and the Milky Way are on a collision course. To locate the Andromeda Galaxy before it ends up in your backyard, first find the Great Square of Pegasus. At midnight, the left hand corner of the square is about one fist above the east-northeast horizon. Less than two fists to the left and down a little bit is another star the same brightness as the star at the corner of the square. From that star, hop about a half a fist up to a star that is about one fourth as bright. Less than another half fist in the same direction is a fuzzy oval patch of light known as the Andromeda Galaxy. The galaxy is impressive to see in binoculars. It consists of about 400 billion stars and is 2.2 million light years away. Go to http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2012/20/ to read more about the upcoming collision.

Wednesday: The bright star Spica is about a half a fist to the upper left of the Moon at 10 p.m. Saturn is about a half a fist above Spica.

Thursday: Jupiter is one fist above the east-northeast horizon at 4:30 a.m. The much brighter Venus is a half a fist below Jupiter.

Friday: Mizar is a well-known binary star in the constellation Ursa Major. You can find it at the bend in the Big Dipper handle, nearly straight overhead at 10 p.m. tonight. Its name is Arabic for waistband. Mizar has an optical double called Alcor which is less than a pinky width away and can easily be seen with the naked eye. Optical doubles are stars that are close together in the sky but do not orbit a common center of mass as true binary stars. Not wanting to deceive sky gazers who call Mizar a binary star, two stars that DO orbit a common center of mass, Mizar actually is a binary. It was the first binary star system discovered by telescope. Mizar A and Mizar B are about 400 astronomical units apart from each other and about 80 light years from Earth. 400 astronomical units is about 10 times the distance between the Sun and Pluto.

The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.

The Ellensburg sky for the week of 6/16/12

Saturday: “Mom, I can’t sleep. It is too light out!” A poor excuse you say? Good astronomy skills, I say. The latest sunset of the year happens over the next two weeks. Surprisingly, the earliest sunrise and the latest sunset do not both happen on the longest day of the year, the day of the summer solstice. The earliest sunrise occurs just before the longest day and the latest sunset occurs just after the longest day. (The earliest sunrise happened last week.) This phenomenon relates to the angle of the Sun’s path near rising and setting. In Ellensburg, that angle is about 66 degrees near the first day of summer. Because of the Earth’s orbit, which causes the Sun’s apparent motion, the angles are not symmetric. The asymmetry in orbital angles leads to the asymmetry in rise and set times. By the way, the “can’t sleep because it is too light out” line may just be an excuse because the sunset times change by only a few seconds each day this time of year. The sun sets between 9:01 and 9:02 p.m. between June 21 and July 3 2012.

Sunday: Do you have a dad that is so great that you wish you could write his name in galaxies? Now you can. UK astronomer Steven Bamford has developed a computer program that finds images of galaxies that resemble different letters. Just enter the words here http://goo.gl/dTkPE and the program spells it out in galaxies. Here’s a word I learned from the Ellensburg High School class of 2012 http://mygalaxies.co.uk/ssmcyi/. And here’s the new Daily Record title page http://mygalaxies.co.uk/jh2m7m/.

Monday: Summer is nearly here. How do I know? Because my kids are home from school. Also, because the Summer Triangle is fairly high in the eastern sky at 10 p.m. Vega, the third brightest star visible from Ellensburg, is about five fists held upright and at arm’s length above the east horizon. Deneb, at the tail of Cygnus the swan is about three and a half fists above the northeast horizon. The third star in the triangle, Altair, in Aquila the eagle is two fists above the east horizon.

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.

Tuesday: Tonight’s Moon is new. Don’t bother looking for it. The new moon is the phase where the Moon is directly between the Earth and the Sun. Hence the side of the Moon facing Earth is not receiving any sunlight and cannot be seen. This is why some people call this phase the “dark moon” and reserve the name “new moon” for the first visible waxing crescent after the Moon moves out from directly between the Earth and Sun.

Wednesday: Today is the first day of summer, the day that the Sun reaches its highest declination (the official name for sky latitude) of 23.5 degrees above the celestial equator. The celestial equator is the line that divides the northern sky from the southern sky. In Ellensburg, the Sun is about seven fists held upright and at arm’s length above the south horizon at 1:00 p.m. (noon standard time). Contrary to popular belief, the Sun is never straight overhead in Ellensburg or anywhere else in the 48 contiguous states. The northernmost portion of the world where the Sun can be directly overhead is 23.5 degrees north latitude. In ancient times, the Sun was in the constellation Cancer the crab on the first day of summer. Hence, 23.5 degrees north latitude has the nickname "Tropic of Cancer". Because the Earth wobbles like a spinning top, the Sun's apparent path through the sky changes slightly over time. Now, the Sun is in the constellation Taurus the bull on the first day of summer. However, citing the high cost of revising all of the science books, geographers are not changing the name of 23.5 degrees north latitude to "Tropic of Taurus". The first day of summer is often called the summer solstice. However, astronomers refer to the summer solstice as the point in the sky in which the Sun is at its highest point above the celestial equator. Thus, summer starts when the Sun is at the summer solstice point. This year, that happens at 4:07 p.m.

Thursday: Saturn is two and a half fists above the southwest horizon and Mars is two fists above the west-southwest horizon at 11 p.m.

Friday: The bright orangish star Arcturus is five and a half fists above the southwest horizon at 11 p.m. Don’t confuse it with Saturn, a similarly colored object much lower in the sky

The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week.