The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of November 21, 2020

What's up in the sky 11/21/20

Today:  “It’s a wonderful day in the neighborhood.” Constellations can be considered neighborhoods in the nighttime sky. But, the stars in those constellations are not necessarily neighbors in real life. For example, the bright stars in the constellation Cassiopeia range from 19 light years to over 10,000 light years away from Earth. One constellation that consists of real neighbors is Ursa Major. Or, more specifically, the Big Dipper. Five stars in the Big Dipper are all moving in the same direction in space, are about the same age, and are all about 80 light years from Earth. “Please won’t you be my neighbor?” Skat, the third brightest star in the constellation Aquarius is a neighbor to these five Big Dipper stars, all of which are about 30 light years from each other. They are thought to have originated in the same nebula about 500 million years ago. Just like human children do, these child stars are slowly moving away from home. Skat is about three fists held upright and at arm’s length above due south at 7:00 p.m. The much brighter Fomalhaut is a fist and a half below Skat. And, it’s not fun being below Skat. 

Sunday: Venus, the brightest point of light in the sky, is about one and a half fists above the southeast horizon at 6:30 a.m. Mercury is to the lower left of Venus, between Venus and the horizon.

Monday: Are you thankful that you live in a solar system with multiple planets? You should be. A giant planet like Jupiter cleans up planetary debris that could have collided with Earth and hindered the formation of complex life. Any inhabitants of the planets orbiting Upsilon Andromedae are thankful for this, as well. Upsilon Andromedae, a star in the constellation Andromeda, was the first Sun-like star discovered to have multiple planets orbiting it. So far, all of its planets are giant planets like Jupiter. But, the system is likely to also contain smaller planets. The dim star, but certainly not its planets, is barely visible straight overhead at 9:00 p.m. Jupiter has set by then. You can see it one and a half fists above the south-southwestern horizon at 5:30 p.m. Saturn is less than a half a fist to the upper left of Jupiter.

Tuesday: Deneb Kaitos, Arabic for whale’s tail, is two and a half fists above due south at 8:30 p.m. This is the brightest star in the constellation Cetus the sea monster. Or, if you are less prone to hyperbole, Cetus the whale.

Wednesday: Mars is about a half a fist from the Moon tonight. At 6:00 p.m., it is right above the Moon. You can watch their relative positions change slightly throughout the night, until they set at 3:00 tomorrow morning.

Thursday: Some of us have a lot to be thankful for on Thanksgiving. But, probably not as much as Andromeda had to be thankful for. According to Greek mythology, the beautiful princess Andromeda was chained to a rock next to the ocean. Cetus the sea monster was about to devour her in order to punish her family. Her mother Queen Cassiopeia and her father King Cepheus didn’t know what to do. It seemed that all was lost. But, along came Andromeda’s boyfriend, the great warrior Perseus. Even though Perseus’ standing as the son of King Zeus and the slayer of Medusa was probably enough to win Andromeda under normal circumstances, Andromeda’s impending death-by-sea-monster was not a normal circumstance. So, Perseus drove his sword into the sea monster’s neck and killed it. This was the first time in recorded history that a set of parents actually welcomed an uninvited Thanksgiving visit from the boyfriend. Perseus is about five fists above the east-northeastern horizon and Andromeda is about seven fists above the eastern horizon at 7:00 p.m.

Friday: We are just a few days away from the earliest sunsets of the year in Ellensburg. (No, the earliest sunsets  are not on the first day of winter.) So this is a good time to learn how to quantify the darkness of the sky. First find the Great Square, the main part of the constellation Pegasus. It is six fists above due south at 7:00 p.m. Find the dimmest star that you can see inside or near the square. Then compare that star to the chart at  https://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/how-dark-is-your-night-sky/. The larger the magnitude number, the dimmer the star. When the sky is exceptionally dark, you can see more stars and more interesting deep-sky objects such as star clusters and nebulae.

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 November 7, 2020

 

Saturday: The CWU campus is mostly closed. But astronomy learning lives on! The Physics Department is hosting a First Saturday VIRTUAL planetarium show today from noon to 1:00 p.m. CWU Teach STEM students Grace Warren and Isabella Sullivan present the planetarium show Stars: past, present, and future! In addition, Professor Bruce Palmquist will highlight other stellar features from the November sky. The show is free and open to all ages. There will be a show at noon on the first Saturday of every month hosted by different CWU astronomers and astronomy educators. Stay at home, practice good physical distancing, and visit http://www.cwu.edu/campus-notices/lydig-virtual-planetarium-show-life-stars to register for the show and to attend online using Zoom.

Sunday: The bright planets Venus and Mercury and bright star Spica make a small triangle in the east-southeastern morning sky all week. Both Venus, which is at the top of the triangle, and Mercury, which is at the bottom, will be moving closer to the horizon as the days go by. Look for the triangle just above the east-southeastern horizon at 6:00 a.m.

Monday: At 6:00 p.m., the brightest point of light in the evening sky, Jupiter, is one and a half fists above the south-southwest horizon. Saturn is a half a fist to the upper left of Jupiter. Mars, which is about the same brightness as Jupiter, is two and a half fists above the east-southeast horizon at this time.

Tuesday: While Stonehenge is an ancient burial ground visited by religious people for thousands of years, MIThenge is an 825-foot long hallway on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology visited by the Sun’s rays twice a year.  Every year in November and January, the setting Sun lines up with a narrow window at the end of the long hall and the light shines down to the opposite end. This season’s alignment is from November 10-12. For more information, visit http://goo.gl/0hwFQf or visit MIT. In addition, challenge yourself to find a similar alignment in your neighborhood.

Wednesday: The Northern Taurid meteor shower peaks tonight, November 11/12. These are slow moving meteors that result in the occasional fireball. The Taurid meteor showers produce a few bright meteors every hour. The Moon is in the waning crescent phase so it doesn’t rise until well after will obscure a lot of the meteors. These meteors appear to come from a point in Taurus the bull, near the open star cluster called the Pleiades. This point is about three fists held upright and at arm’s length above the east horizon at 8 p.m. You can follow this point throughout the night, as it will remain one fist above the V-shaped Hyades Cluster with its bright star Aldebaran (pronounced Al-deb’-a-ran). Meteors are tiny rocks that burn up in the atmosphere when the Earth runs into them. These rocks are broken off parts of Comet 2P/Encke. For more information, go to https://earthsky.org/?p=136475. 

Thursday: Did you open your Martinmas gifts yesterday? Martinmas is a holiday in many parts of the world commemorating Saint Martin of Tours. He was buried on November 11, 397. What does this have to do with astronomy? Not much except that the celebration on November 11 often doubles as a cross-quarter day celebration, a day that is halfway between an equinox and a solstice. Also, according to an agricultural calendar, November 11 marks the practical beginning of winter.

Friday: The Moon joins the Venus-Spica-Mercury to make an astronomical quadrilateral in the morning sky. Look for the foursome about one fist above the east-southeast horizon at 6:00 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 October 24, 2020

Saturday:  Halloween is next weekend 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 held upright and at arm’s length 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, a little more than three fists above due east, is larger at over 1000 stars and younger. Compared to our 5 billion year old Sun, the 100 million year age of the Pleiades is infant-like. 

Sunday: Last year, the Hubble Space Telescope got the first close-up view of a comet from another star system. Comet 2I/Borisov was discovered by amateur astronomer Gennady on August 30, 2019 as the second interstellar object ever confirmed. 2I is the new official designator for the second interstellar object. Astronomers know it is from another star system because it is going way too fast, 110,000 miles per hour, to be gravitationally bound to the Sun. Read and watch more about the discovery at http://tiny.cc/mhh0tz. 

Monday: Venus is two and a half fists above the east-southeastern horizon at 7:00 a.m.

Tuesday: What time is tea time? Certainly not during an autumn evening. The constellation Sagittarius the archer, with its signature teapot shape, is sinking into the south-southwestern horizon by 7:00 p.m. The handle is on top and the spout is touching the horizon ready to pour that last cup of tea. Saturn is riding the teapot, about one and a half fists above the south-southwest horizon.

Wednesday: Mars starts the evening one fist to the left of the Moon, low in the eastern sky right after sunset. By midnight, the Moon has moved a little closer to Mars. Both are more than four fists above the southern horizon.  By 5:00 a.m., Mars and the Moon are a half a fist apart, low in the western sky.

Thursday: Bright Jupiter is two fists above the south-southwestern horizon at 7:00 p.m. Saturn is a half a fist to the upper left of Jupiter. Pluto, not visible even with a small telescope, is between the two giant planets.

Friday: Uranus is in opposition tonight. That doesn’t mean it refuses to work with the other political party. It means that Uranus is on the opposite side of the Earth as the Sun is so it is highest in the sky during the darkest part of the night. Also, it is visible with binoculars for the entire night. Go outside at 9:00 p.m. and find the Moon. Put the Moon in the lower right portion of your binoculars. Uranus will be in or just outside the upper left portion of your field of view. Follow the object throughout the night. By 5:00 a.m., Uranus will be to the upper right of the Moon. Try to find Uranus for the next few nights. You’ll know you have the right object if it moves a little bit to the right each night compared to the background stars.

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 October 17, 2020

 

Saturday: Mars is four fists held upright and at arm’s length above the southeastern horizon at 10:00 p.m. For more information about NASA’s plans for the Moon and Mars, watch NASA administrator Jim Bridenstein’s keynote address to the 2020 Mars Society Convention at 10:00 am, PDT. Go to http://tiny.cc/5htzsz for more information.  

Sunday: Venus is two and a half fists above the east-southeastern horizon at 6:30 a.m. 

Monday: The red supergiant star Antares is right below the Moon at 7:00 p.m., very low in the southwestern sky.

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 for the next two nights. 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 is in the waxing crescent phase, meaning it will set. The best time to observe will be near dawn, after moonset. Meteor showers are named after the constellation from which the meteors appear to originate. These meteors appear to come from a point in Orion, the hunter. This point is about one fist held upright and at arm’s length above due east at midnight. You can follow this point throughout the night as it will remain one fist above the prominent reddish star Betelgeuse (pronounced Bet'-el-jews). The Orionid meteors are fast - up to 40 miles per second. If you fall asleep tonight, you can catch the tail end of the shower every night until early November. For more information, go to https://earthsky.org/?p=27937. 

Wednesday: 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 six fists above the northeastern horizon at 8:00 p.m., just above the zigzag line that marks the constellation Cassiopeia.

Thursday: The Moon, Jupiter, and Saturn make a small triangle in the sky tonight. Look south at 7:00 p.m. Saturn is a half a fist above the Moon and Jupiter is a half a fist to the upper right of the Moon. 

Friday: Along with the not-so-subtle drug reference in their name, The Doobie Brothers could have made an astronomy reference in their song lyrics if they would have written: “Old Earth water, keep on rollin’, Mississippi moon won’t you keep on shining on me.” Astronomers now think that some of the water on Earth may be older than the Solar System. The chemical signature of the water indicates it came from a very cold source, just a few degrees above absolute zero. The early Solar System was much warmer than this meaning the water came from a source outside the Solar System. For more information about the old Earth water, go to http://goo.gl/QsEu5P.

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.