The Ellensburg sky for the week of 6/29/13

Saturday: Tonight’s late rising moon is in the last quarter phase. Don’t wait up for it if you are tired because it doesn’t rise until 1 a.m. However, if you chose to wait, look straight up at midnight. The head of Draco the dragon will be looking straight down on you. The brightest star in the head is called Eltanin. If you chose to wait a VERY long time, Eltanin will be the brightest star in the night sky. Currently 154 light years away, it is moving towards Earth and will be only 28 light years away in about 1.3 million years, claiming the title as brightest star.

Sunday: 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.

Monday: Saturn is three fists above the south-southwest horizon at 10 p.m.

Tuesday: Mars is a half a fist above the east-northeast horizon at 4:30 a.m.

Wednesday: 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.

Thursday: Tonight, 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 132 planets whose presence has been confirmed by other means and evidence of 3,216 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/.

Friday: 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.

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

The Ellensburg sky for the week of 6/22/13

Saturday: It’s a plane. It’s a bird. No, it’s Supermoon! The biggest and brightest full moon this year, 14% bigger and 30% brighter! This will lead to very high tides! And an overuse of exclamation points! The Moon is full late tonight night meaning the Earth, Moon, and Sun are in line with each other. That means the Moon and Sun are both stretching the Earth along the same axis causing the ocean water in line with the Sun and Moon to be pulled upward. In addition, the moon is at perigee Saturday night. Peri- means close and –gee refers to the Earth so this is the day of the month when the moon is closest to the Earth. Tonight is the closest the full moon gets all year, which accentuates the upward pull on the water and makes the tides really high. For more information about Supermoon!, go to http://goo.gl/6tGGC.

Sunday: 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.

Monday: Today is Saint John’s Day, an ancient festival to celebrate midsummer. In some cultures, the solstice marked the middle of summer, not the beginning.

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: Saturn is three fists above the south-southwest horizon at 10 p.m.

Thursday: Mars is about a half a fist above the east-northeast horizon at 4:30 this morning.

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 6/15/13

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 happens this weekend.) 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 asymmetries 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 20 and July 2 2012.

Sunday: 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://mygalaxies.co.uk/ and the program spells it out in galaxies. 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: The bright star Spica is about a half a fist to the right of the moon and Saturn is less than a fist to the upper left of the moon at 11 p.m.

Wednesday: Mercury is about a fingers width to the left of the very bright Venus. They are about a half a fist above the west-northwest horizon at 9:30 p.m. Venus will be easy to spot but you may need binoculars to see Mercury.

Thursday: 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 10:04 p.m. So I guess tomorrow is the first full day of summer.

Friday: Mars is just barely starting to creep into the pre-dawn sky. It is less than a half a fist above the northeast horizon at 4:30 a.m.

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

The Ellesnburg sky for the week of 6/8/13

Have you bought your favorite CWU graduate a graduation gift yet? Why not get her or him a star? I don’t mean from one of those organizations that offers to “register the name of YOUR star with the U.S. Patent Office”. No company owns the right to name stars after people. Besides, the stars those companies “name” are so dim you can’t find them. In this column, I’ll pick a constellation and representative star for each of the four colleges at CWU. Then, I’ll briefly tell the story of the constellation and relate that story to the aspect of public service CWU graduates from that college are uniquely qualified to engage in based on my version of sky interpretation. A couple can have “their” song so your favorite CWU graduate can have her or his star.

Saturday: Just as gyms and stadiums have been filled with smart people for many evenings for the past few weeks, the sky is filled with planets. Since Venus and Mercury set early, look for them first. The very bright Venus is about a half a fist held upright and at arm’s length above the west-northwest horizon at 9:30. Much dimmer Mercury is a half a fist to the upper left of it. If you need to go off and make small talk with someone, you have some time to spare now. At 10 p.m., Saturn is three fists above due south. If you’re staying at the party late, don’t worry. Saturn doesn’t set in the southwest sky until 3 a.m.

Sunday: College of Arts and Humanities: You are the people who interpret the world in unique ways. Then, you share those ways with others. According to Greek mythology, Orpheus charmed everyone he met when he played the lyre or harp. After his wife died tragically, he journeyed to the underworld to charm its inhabitants in an effort to win his wife back to the living world. Your service reminder: use your talent to bring joy to others. The constellation Lyra and its bright star Vega should remind you of the power of the arts. Vega is five fists above the southwest horizon at 11 p.m.

Monday: College of Business. You are the future movers and shakers. The future CEOs. The future big donors to Central. Auriga represented a king of Athens who happened to be mobility impaired. Instead of sitting around waiting for others to transport him, he took the initiative to invent the four-wheeled chariot. He solved a problem for a special need. Your service reminder: address the problems of those in the most need. To remind you of that, look to the constellation Auriga. Its bright star Capella is about one fist above the north horizon at 11 p.m.

Tuesday: Tomorrow morning, 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 evening sky, it is east of the Sun. Thus, this evening’s elongation is known as the greatest eastern elongation. (If you care to remember this in general, remember both eastern and evening start with the letter "e".) Tonight and tomorrow will be the best nights to observe Mercury for the next few months. Mercury is one fist held upright and at arm’s length above the west-northwest horizon at 9:30 p.m. Over the next two weeks, Mercury will move toward the Sun in the sky. By late July, it will be visible in the morning sky.

Wednesday: College of Education and Professional Studies. You are the teachers. The craftspeople. The facilitators of learning in a diverse world. Bootes, the herdsman, was such a person. Bootes’ job was to guide the northern constellations to the feeding place and the watering hole. He and his dogs were especially in charge of Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, the greater and lesser bears. Your service reminder: guide others to a better place in life. Look to the constellation Bootes and its bright star Arcturus to remind you of this. Arcturus is six fists above the southwest horizon at 11 p.m.

Thursday: College of the Sciences. You are the people who will systematically study how the world works. Agriculture is an important scientific application. Each year, farmers must use the findings of science to be successful. Who better to represent the College of the Sciences than Virgo, the goddess of the harvest? Virgo looms large in the sky holding an ear of wheat in her hand. Your service reminder: study the practical aspects of the scientific world. The ear of wheat, and your service reminder, is represented by the bright star Spica. Spica is two and a half fists above the southwest horizon at 11 p.m.

Friday: Altair, in the constellation Aquila the eagle, is two fists above the east 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 6/1/13

Saturday: The month of June is named after Juno, the queen of the Roman gods and the mythological protector of the Roman state. In ancient Rome, the month began when the crescent moon was first seen in the evening sky from Capitoline Hill in Rome. If we still started months this way, June wouldn’t begin until about two weeks from now. Celebrate the first sunset in June by actually watching it… and then keeping your gaze fixed on the west-northwest horizon until it is dark enough to see Jupiter, Venus, and Mercury in a line pointing away from the Sun. Jupiter will be less than a half a fist above the horizon when you first see it. Within a few days, it will be lost in the glare of the setting Sun. Venus is the brightest planet and Mercury is to the upper left of Venus.

Sunday: In 1979, the group Foreigner recorded the song “Head Games”. They could have been singing about the constellations Hercules and Ophiuchus when they said “head games, it’s just you and me baby, head games, I can’t take it anymore” because the heads of these two constellations have been right next to each other in the nighttime sky for all of human history. And just to make it easy for you, a star that bears an Arabic name that means “the head” represents each head. In Hercules, it's Ras Algethi (head of the kneeler); in Ophiuchus, Ras Alhague (head of the serpent charmer). At 11 p.m., Ras Alhague, the brighter of the two, is a little more than four fists held upright and at arm’s length above the southeast horizon. Ras Algethi is about a half a fist to the upper right of Ras Alhague.

Monday: Saturn is three fists above the south horizon at 10 p.m.

Tuesday: The bright star Arcturus is six fists above the south-southeast horizon at 10 p.m.

Wednesday: Nearly 400 years ago, Galileo viewed the Pleiades star cluster through his telescope and saw that the seven or so stars in the region visible to the naked eye became many more. There are two main types of star clusters. Open star clusters are groups of a few dozen to a few thousand stars that formed from the same cloud of gas and dust within our galaxy. Stars in open star clusters are young as far as stars go. Globular clusters are groups of up to a few million stars that orbit the core of spiral galaxies such as our own Milky Way. One of the most well known star clusters is the globular cluster in Hercules, an object that is fairly easy to find with binoculars. First find Vega, the bright bluish star five fists above the east horizon at 11 p.m. Two fists above Vega is a keystone shape. Aim your binoculars at the upper left hand star of the keystone. The globular cluster is one third of the way to the rightmost star of the keystone. It looks like a fuzzy patch on the obtuse angle of a small obtuse triangle. If you don’t know what an obtuse angle is, you should not have told your teacher, “I’ll never need to know this stuff”.

Thursday: It is often said that Earth is a water world because about 70% of the Earth’s surface is covered by water. What would it look like if all that water on the surface were gathered up into a ball? That “ball” would be about 700 km in diameter, less than half the diameter of the Moon. The Astronomy Picture of the day shows us right here http://goo.gl/4wXLM

Friday: You can set your watch tonight by carefully observing Segin, the left-most star in the W-shaped Cassiopeia. It will be due north at exactly 10 p.m. However, another star in Cassiopeia is causing astronomers to doubt whether or not 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 clocks on Earth. But the neutron star called 1E 2259+586 (how’s that for a celebrity baby name) exhibited a spin glitch that astronomers had never seen before. To find out more about this new excuse for being late, go to http://goo.gl/ohPw8.

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

The Ellensburg sky for the week of 5/25/13

Saturday: Mercury, Venus, and Jupiter are neighbors low in the west-northwest sky just after sunset all week. Tonight at 9 p.m., Venus is on the bottom of a small triangle, Jupiter is to the upper left of it and Mercury is right above it. As the week goes by, Jupiter moves down while Mercury and Venus move up. By Wednesday, they are in a line with Jupiter on the bottom and Mercury on the top.

Sunday: Are you planning on a late Saturday night? If so, look six fists above the southern horizon at 2:39 a.m. You’ll see the very bright International Space Station (ISS) moving from the Earth’s shadow into position to reflect the Sun’s light toward Ellensburg. The ISS will be the brightest point of light in the sky. In fact, this is the brightest the ISS will be all week. If you’d rather not stay up so late but are still interested in finding out when the ISS is visible from your location, go to http://spotthestation.nasa.gov/ and sign up for free ISS alerts to be sent to your email or phone.

Monday: The constellation Aquila the eagle is starting its migration across the summer evening sky this month. Aquila, marked by its bright star Altair, rises above the east horizon at about 11 p.m. Not all animal migrations are fully understood by scientists. We might be inclined to attribute bird migrations to instinct. This answer certainly did not satisfy the theologian C. S. Lewis. In his short work “Men Without Chests”, he wrote, “to say that migratory birds find their way by instinct is only to say that we do not know how migratory birds find their way”. In science (and theology), Lewis is telling us to look for real causes and not simply labels such as instinct. The cause for Aquila’s migration is the Earth orbiting the Sun. As the Earth moves around the Sun, certain constellations move into the evening sky as others get lost in the glare of the setting Sun.

Tuesday: Antares is one fist above the south-southeast horizon at 11 p.m.

Wednesday: Cygnus the swan flies tonight. Deneb, the brightest star in the constellation, whose name means “tail” in Arabic, is two fists above the northeast horizon at 10 p.m. Cygnus’ wings make a vertical line one half a fist to the right of Deneb. Its head, marked by the star Albireo, is two fists to the right of Deneb. While Deneb is at the tail of Cygnus, it is at the head of the line of bright stars. It is 160,000 times more luminous than the Sun making it one of the brightest stars in the galaxy. It does not dominate our night sky because it is 2,600 light years away, one of the farthest naked eye stars. If Deneb were 25 light years away, it would shine as bright as a crescent moon. Compare that to Vega, which is 25 light years away. Vega is three and a half fists above the east-northeast horizon at this time.

Thursday: Good night little doggie. Procyon, the brightest star in Canis Minor, the little dog, is just one fist above the west horizon at 10 p.m. Over the next couple of weeks, it will be too close to the setting Sun in the sky to be visible.

Friday: Late tonight, the moon rises in the third quarter phase. By tomorrow morning, it is in the east-southeast sky in the constellation Pisces.

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

The Ellensburg sky for the week of 5/18/13

Saturday: Saturn is nearly three fists held upright and at arm’s length above the south-southeast horizon. With the naked eye, and through binoculars, Saturn looks to be a dull orange color. This is because of the different gasses in the atmosphere. But a close up view reveals even more colors - brown, yellow, and even blue – emphasizing different gases, cloud layers, and wind patterns. For a true-color close-up view of Saturn and Titan, its largest moon, go to http://goo.gl/vqI3Z.

Sunday: The questions who, what, where, and when can only be asked with a “W”. At 11 p.m., the W-shaped constellation Cassiopeia is about two fists above due north. The middle star in the W was used as a navigation reference point during the early space missions. The American astronaut Gus Grissom nicknamed the star Navi, his middle name Ivan spelled backwards. After he died in the Apollo 1 fire, the star name was kept as a memorial.

Monday: Mercury, Venus, and Jupiter are clustered low in the west-northwest sky after sunset for most of the week. At 9 p.m. tonight, Jupiter is about a fist above the horizon, Venus is a half a fist above the horizon, and Mercury is to the lower right of Venus. As the week goes on, Venus and Mercury move upward in the sky and Jupiter moves downward. By Thursday, the rapidly moving Mercury has passed up Venus. By next week, both Venus and Mercury are above Jupiter.

Tuesday: Spica remains less than a half a fist to the left of the moon throughout the night.

Wednesday: Saturn remains about a half a fist or less above the moon throughout the night.

Thursday: When it is sitting low in the western sky, many people mistake the star Capella for a planet. It is bright. It has a slight yellow color. But, Capella is compelling on its own. It is the fourth brightest star we can see in Ellensburg. It is the most northerly bright star. It is a binary star consisting of two yellow giant stars that orbit each other every 100 days. At 10 p.m., Capella is two fists above the northwest horizon. If you miss it tonight, don’t worry. Capella is the brightest circumpolar star meaning it is the brightest star that never goes below the horizon from our point of view in Ellensburg.

Friday: Late spring and early summer is a good time to look for star clusters. Last week, you learned about M3, the third object cataloged by French astronomer Charles Messier over 200 years ago. One of the best clusters is the globular cluster in the constellation Hercules, also called M13. (Hummm. Guess what number that object is in Messier’s catalog.) Globular clusters are compact groupings of a few hundred thousand stars in a spherical shape 100 light years across. (For comparison, a 100 light year diameter sphere near out Sun would contain a few hundred stars.) The globular cluster in Hercules is six fists above due east at 11 p.m. First find Vega, the bright bluish star about four fists above the east-northeast horizon. Two fists to the upper right of Vega is a keystone shape. Aim your binoculars at the two stars that form the uppermost point of the keystone. The globular cluster is one third of the way south of the uppermost star on the way to the rightmost star of the keystone. It looks like a fuzzy patch on the obtuse angle of a small obtuse triangle. If you don’t know what an obtuse angle is, you should not have told your teacher, “I’ll never need to know this stuff”.

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