The Ellensburg, WA sky for the week of September 18, 2021

Saturday: Jupiter and Saturn are about two fists above the south-southeastern horizon at 9:00 p.m. Jupiter is the much brighter of the two. Saturn is about one and a half fists to the right of Jupiter, which is about one and a half fists to the upper right of the Moon. When you are looking at this part of the sky, you are looking in the direction of more than just the two planets. You are also looking in the direction of their moons. Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, is easily visible with a small telescope, about five “ring diameters” to the side of Saturn at this time. Jupiter’s four largest moons are also visible with a small telescope. Calisto and Ganymede are on one side of Jupiter, with Ganymede appearing the farthest away. Europa is visible in the other. If you have very clear skies, you may see Io on the Europa side, right next to Jupiter. Recently, a team of Canadian astronomers analyzed images of Jupiter from 2010 and estimated that Jupiter could have 600 moons at least 800 meters, a half mile, in diameter. They didn’t actually discover these moons. They just formulated a possible model of the Jovian system. For more on this, go to https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/jupiter-could-have-600-moons/. 

Sunday: The bright star Capella is two fists above due northeast at 11:00 p.m.

Monday: Shine on, shine on harvest moon, up in the sky. It’s just like a full moon in January, February, June and July. The only difference is that near the Autumnal Equinox (also known as the first day of fall), the full moon rises close to sunset resulting in a full night of light for the harvest. The harvest moon looks more orange than usual when it is near the horizon because of the dust kicked up from the harvest. The dust scatters the white light reflecting off the Moon resulting in slightly more of the red and orange components of the white light reaching your eyes. Although the Moon has a dull yellow color whenever it is near the horizon owing to light scattering off dust and atmospheric particles, the effect is more noticeable for the harvest Moon. For more information about the harvest moon, go to https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/harvest-moon-2/. 

Tuesday: According to the “One world, group hug, love everyone” philosophy, political borders are human-made and can’t be seen from space so why can’t we all just get along. According to real world pragmatic discoveries, some human-made political borders CAN be seen from space. Since 2003, India has illuminated its border with Pakistan to prevent illegal crossings. In 2011, astronaut Ron Garan took a picture of that border from the International Space Station. For more information, including the photo, go to http://goo.gl/mY8xG.

Wednesday: At 12:22 p.m. PDT, the center of the Sun crosses the celestial equator and passes into the southern sky. The celestial equator is an imaginary line that divides the sky into a northern and southern half. When the Sun is in the southern half of the sky, it appears to take a shorter path from rising to setting. It also does not get as high in the sky at noon. This leads to shorter days and longer nights. Since the Sun crosses the celestial equator today, there is an instant when it is equally in the northern and southern sky, called the north and south celestial hemispheres. This so-called “equal night” is given by the Latin word equinox. Thus, today is known as the Autumnal Equinox. However, the day and night are not of equal duration today. The sun rises at 6:50 a.m. and sets at 6:59 p.m. in the northern latitudes of the United States. At these latitudes, day and night are closest to equal duration on Saturday.

Thursday: Last year, astronomers announced that they detected phosphine, a possible biosignature of life, in the upper atmosphere of Venus. Although the surface of Venus is inhospitable, astronomers have long speculated that the upper atmosphere could harbor life. Not Cloud City life from The Empire Strikes Back but maybe cellular life. But more recent studies show that the original scientists just found the signature of sulfur dioxide, a gas common on Venus. This recent phosphate news is an excellent example of science at work. In less than a year, science went from “we may have found a marker for life on Venus” to “it is unclear if we found a marker for life” to “we probably didn’t find a marker for life”. Do an internet search of the words Venus and phosphine and read the articles to follow the story. To get yourself in the mood, go outside at 7:45 p.m. Venus is a half a fist above the southwestern horizon at this time.

Friday: The bright star Vega is about five fists above the western horizon at 11:00 p.m. Its fellow Summer Triangle star Deneb is about two fists above it. Altair, the third star in the triangle, is about four fists above the southwestern 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 September 11, 2021

Saturday: “You know Aries and Cancer and Draco and Libra. Leo and Pisces and Virgo and Hydra. But, do you recall, the pointiest asterism of all? Triangulum, the three sided asterism, had a very pointy shape. And if you didn’t know it, you would say it poked an ape.” Sorry. Some stores have started sending out their Christmas catalogues and that has put me in the mood to modify some Christmas songs. Anyway, Triangulum is a small constellation between the more prominent Andromeda and Aries. Its main feature is a skinny triangle oriented parallel to and nearly four fists held upright and at arm’s length above the eastern horizon at 11:00 p.m.

Sunday: Fomalhaut, the southernmost bright star visible from the northern USA, is one fist above the south-southeastern horizon at 11 p.m. In 2008, Fomalhaut and its surroundings became the first star system with an extrasolar planet to be directly imaged. See the family photo at  https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap081114.html. 

Monday: Venus and Mercury are just above the west-southwestern horizon at 7:30 p.m. Venus is bright and fairly easy to find. Mercury is more of a challenge. But tonight is your best chance for the next few weeks because it is at its greatest distance from the Sun in the sky this orbital cycle.  This orientation is called the greatest eastern elongation. Over the next few weeks, Mercury will move toward the Sun in the sky. By mid-October, it will be visible in the morning sky.

Tuesday: Neptune is in opposition tonight. Opposition means that Neptune is crabby. It means that it is on the opposite side of the Earth as the Sun. When an object is in opposition, it is at its highest point in the sky during the darkest time of the day. Thus, opposition is typically the best time to observe a planet. Neptune is three fists above due southeast at 10:00 p.m. Tonight, it is midway between Jupiter and the Moon. You’ll need binoculars to see it. 

Wednesday: In 1987, the rock group Def Leppard sang “Pour some sugar on me, in the name of love. Pour some sugar on me, come on fire me up”. In 2012, some European astronomers “found some sugar near stars, they were very young. Found some sugar near stars, out where planets formed.” Astronomers observed molecules of glycolaldehyde, a simple form of sugar, in the disk of gas and dust orbiting young binary stars. This is the first time astronomers have found this simple sugar so close to a star indicating that organic molecules can be found in planet-forming regions of stars. For more information, go to http://goo.gl/tfwy1.

Thursday: Saturn is a half a fist above the Moon at 9:00 p.m. They are about two fists above the south-southestern horizon. Jupiter is about a fist and a half east of Saturn. The Moon moves about a half a fist eastward each night. That means tomorrow night the Moon will be about a half a fist below Jupiter at 9:00 p.m.

Friday: Earlier this week, you read about Fomalhaut, the second brightest star with a planet. The brightest star known to have a planet is Pollux, in the constellation Gemini. (First vs. second brightest is meaningless here because they are nearly identical in magnitude, 1.15 vs. 1.16.) Pollux is four and a half fists above due east at 5:30 a.m., right below its “twin” star Castor. Read more about Pollux at https://goo.gl/cL5t9p.

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 September 4, 2021

Saturday: Jupiter is one and a half fists held upright and at arm’s length above due southeast at 9:00 p.m. Saturn is about two fists to the right of Jupiter.

Sunday: “Excuse me, do you have the time?”

“No, but the Big Dipper does.”

You can use the orientation of the Big Dipper to tell time with a precision of about 15-30 minutes. First, find the two stars at the far end of the Big Dipper cup, the stars that do not touch the handle. Draw an imaginary line segment starting at the North Star and passing through the two Big Dipper cup stars. Now, draw a big circle around the North Star. Your circle is a 24-hour clock. Number the circle from 0 hours at the top, counterclockwise to 12 hours at the bottom of the circle, and back up to 24 hours at the top. (O hours and 24 hours are the same on this clock because the day is 24 hours long.) The hour number on the big circle closest to where your imaginary line intersects this circle is called your raw time. Due to the location of the Big Dipper compared to the rest of the stars, the time nearest the intersection (the raw time) is correct for March 6. For any other night, subtract two times the number of months the current date is after March 6 from the raw time. For example, let’s say the imaginary line between the North Star and the Dipper stars is pointed to the right. That means the raw time is 18 hours or 6 p.m. If you made this observation tonight, which is six months after March 6, you would subtract two times six or 12 hours from the raw time.  Don’t forget to convert for daylight savings time if needed. For a more complete explanation on how to do the Big Dipper clock math, go to http://goo.gl/02HmA. If you prefer a more visual tool, and a fun project to do with your kids, there is a simple “star clock” template and instructions at https://skyandtelescope.org/observing/make-a-star-clock/. Use this paper star clock whenever your watch is broken. The Big Dipper is in the northwestern sky at 9:00 p.m. tonight.

Monday: Labor Day was the brainchild of labor unions and is dedicated to American workers. The first Labor Day was celebrated in 1882. The Greek mythical hero Hercules probably wished there was a Labor Day to commemorate his work. As punishment for killing his family while he was temporarily insane, he had to perform twelve nearly impossible tasks such as killing monsters or stealing things from deities. Hmmm. Maybe we shouldn’t commemorate his labors. But we can enjoy his constellation. The keystone asterism representing the body of Hercules is six fists held upright and at arm’s length above the western horizon at 10:00 p.m. For more information about the Labors of Hercules, go to http://goo.gl/ozVF5. 

Tuesday: School starts this week so it is time for a little geometry review. A square is a regular quadrilateral. This means it has four equal sides, four equal angles, and wears old fashioned clothing. Go outside at 10:00 p.m. tonight with a notebook in hand to sketch one. The Great Square of Pegasus is balancing on its corner three fists above the eastern horizon. The top corner of the square is two fists above the bottom corner. The other two corners are to the left and right of the line segment connecting the top and bottom corners. 

Wednesday: Venus is one and a half fists to the left of the waxing crescent Moon at 8:00 p.m. They are low in the south-southwestern sky.

Thursday: Geometry review, part 2. Go outside at 10:00 p.m. tonight with a notebook in hand. (Good teaching involves a little repetition.) A triangle is a polygon with three corners and three line segments as sides. A good example is the Summer Triangle made up of the bright stars Vega, Deneb and Altair. Altair is five fists above the southern horizon. Vega, the brightest star in the triangle, is seven fists above the western horizon. Deneb is a little bit east of straight overhead.  

Friday: The asteroid Pallas is at opposition tonight. That doesn’t mean that Pallas says “no” when you say “yes”. Opposition means that Pallas is on the opposite side of the Earth as the Sun. When an object is in opposition, it is at its highest point in the sky during the darkest time of the day. Thus, opposition is typically the best time to observe an asteroid or planet. Pallas is three fists above the southeastern horizon at 10:00 p.m. First find bright Jupiter in the center of your binoculars’ field of view to the somewhat bright reddish star Hydor. Then, with Hydor at the center of your field of view, move your binoculars about one and a half fields of view to the upper left to reach Pallas. It is in the middle of a small parallelogram. As the days go by, Pallas moves to the lower right compared to the parallelogram.

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 August 28, 2021

 

Saturday: Jupiter and Saturn line up in the southern sky at 9:30 p.m. Jupiter is one and a fists above due southeast and Saturn is two fists to the right of it. Astronomers discovered volcanoes spewing water vapor on Saturn’s moon Enceledus back in 2005. Just two years ago, scientists published findings of similar activity on Jupiter’s moon Europa. It’s not possible to see Enceladus with a small telescope. But you can see Europa using a small telescope.  If you look at 9:30 p.m., you’ll see all four large moons: three on one side and one on the other. Io is by itself on one side of Jupiter. On the other side of Jupiter, Europa is closest to Jupiter. Brighter Ganymede is right next to Europa and Callisto is farther out. Depending on the size of your telescope, Ganymede and Europa may look like a single point of light. For more information about Europa’s geysers, go to https://earthsky.org/space/europa-water-vapor-geysers-goddard. 

Sunday: Venus is a half a fist above the west-southwestern horizon at 8:30 p.m. The bright star Spica is less than a fist to the left of Venus.

Monday: Had the script been written a little differently for a well-known Robin Williams movie, we might have heard Mr. Williams shout, “Goooood Morning Orion the hunter”. Orion is typically thought of as a winter constellation. But, it makes its first appearance in the early morning summer sky. The lowest corner of Orion’s body, represented by the star Saiph (pronounced “safe”), rises at 2:00 a.m., well before the Sun. By 5:30 a.m., Orion’s belt is three fists above the south-southeastern horizon. 

Tuesday: Need a caffeine pick-me-up? Make it a double. Need an astronomy pick-me-up? Make it a double double. Find Vega, in the constellation Lyra the lyre, nearly straight overhead at 9:00 tonight. Less than half a fist to the east (or left if you are facing south) of the bright bluish star Vega is the “star” Epsilon Lyra. If you look at Epsilon Lyra through binoculars, it looks like two stars. If you look at Epsilon Lyra through a large enough telescope, you will notice that each star in the pair is itself a pair of stars.  Each star in the double is double. Hence, Epsilon Lyra is known as the double double. The stars in each pair orbit a point approximately in the center of each respective pair. The pairs themselves orbit a point between the two pairs.

Wednesday: While you were looking through your underwear drawer for clean socks, some citizen scientists were looking through sky maps obtained by robotic telescopes to find brown dwarfs. The project, called Backyard Worlds: Planet 9, allows anyone with a computer and internet connection to search through thousands of images to find these strange objects that are midway between being classified as large planets and small stars. Some brown dwarfs can have surface temperatures of thousands of degrees Celsius, the recently discovered ones are cooler than the boiling point of water and may even have clouds of water vapor! Read more about the discovery and how you can participate in this project at https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2020-159. 

Thursday: “I’m a little teapot, short and stout. The galactic center, I pour it out.” (I’m a Little Teapot, astronomy version, 2021.) Despite its great size and importance, the center of our Milky Way galaxy and its giant black hole remains hidden to the naked eye behind thick clouds of gas and dust. By plotting the orbits of stars near the middle of the galaxy, astronomers have determined that the black hole’s mass is equal to about 4.5 million Suns. While you can’t see the actual galactic center, you can gaze in the direction of the center by looking just to the right of the teapot asterism in the constellation Sagittarius. This point is about one fist above the south-southwestern horizon at 9:00 p.m.

Friday: The Gemini Twins are right above the waning crescent Moon in the eastern sky at 5:30 a.m. Pollux is a little more than a half a fist above the Moon and Castor is another half fist up.

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 August 21, 2021

 

Saturday: Jupiter, Saturn, and the Full Moon make a small triangle in the sky. At 9:00 p.m. low in the southeastern sky, Jupiter is about a half a fist to the upper left of the Moon and Saturn is about two fists to the upper right of the Moon. The three celestial objects will move through the sky together all night.

Sunday: Arcturus is three fists held upright and at arm’s length above the western horizon at 9:00 p.m. This star, whose name means bear watcher, is the brightest in the sky’s northern hemisphere. It follows Ursa Major, the Great Bear, around the North Star. Arcturus is the closest giant star to Earth. It is one of the few stars whose diameter can be measured directly rather than being inferred from its density and mass, which themselves are derived from other parameters. 

Monday: Have you ever gone to a family reunion, looked around and asked, “How in the world are we related to each other?” Astronomers look around the Solar System and wonder if there is life anywhere else that we are related to. The Mars Science Laboratory landed on Mars in 2012 to investigate whether it ever had conditions favorable for life. The Venus Express studied the atmosphere of Venus from 2006 to 2014. NASA plans to launch the Europa Clipper in 2023 to look for evidence of current or past life in the Jovian moon’s ice-covered ocean. NASA just started working on the Dragonfly mission to fly a drone through the atmosphere of Saturn’s moon Titan to study clues for the origin of life. To learn more about the search for life in the Solar System and beyond, go to https://www.astrobio.net/, a NASA-sponsored popular science magazine. While you won’t see anyone waving back, you can see Venus right after sunset. At 8:30, it is a half a fist above the west-southwestern horizon. The Mercury-bound probe BepiColombo passed by Venus in early August and snapped a close-up image, found at https://stardate.org/astro-guide/gallery/just-passing.

Tuesday: Deneb is straight overhead at 11:30 p.m. When you look at Deneb, you are seeing light that left Deneb about 1,800 years ago.

Wednesday: All stars rotate. Our Sun takes a little less than one Earth month to rotate once on its axis. Astronomers studied the relationship between mass, stellar rotation, and planetary formation by aiming NASA’s recently retired Kepler space telescope toward the Pleiades open star cluster. All 1,000 stars in this group are nearly the same age, 125 million years old. Since all of the stars are the same age and formed from the same set of materials, astronomers have the ideal “laboratory” to isolate the role star mass plays on star rotation and evolution. Read more about the findings at http://goo.gl/osijIY. See the Pleiades for yourself, one fist above the east-northeastern horizon at 11:30 p.m.

Thursday: Seventeenth century astronomers documented the appearance of a new star, or “nova”, in 1670. However, as modern astronomers studied the records of the star, called Nova Vulpeculae 1670, they realized it didn’t have the characteristics of a typical nova because it didn’t repeatedly brighten and dim. It brightened twice and disappeared for good. Turning their telescopes to the region, they discovered the chemical signature to be characteristic of a very rare collision of two stars. For more information about this discovery, go to http://goo.gl/rJnC2G. Nova Vulpeculae 1670 is right below the binary star system Alberio, the head of Cygnus the swan. Alberio is seven fists above due south at 10:00 p.m.

Friday: The bright star Sirius is rising right before the Sun. It is a half a fist above the east-southeastern horizon at 5:30 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 August 14, 2021

 

Lego is celebrating the 20th anniversary of the launch of the first Harry Potter movie by releasing a giant Lego version of Hedwig, Harry’s owl. Let’s celebrate some Harry Potter science.

Saturday: One minor Harry Potter character actually has two well-known star names: Regulus Arcturus 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. 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 Arcturus Black perhaps? Regulus the star is right in line with the Sun at this time of year so it is not visible. Arcturus, the second brightest star visible in the nighttime sky in Washington and at Hogwarts, is three fists held upright and at arm’s length above the western horizon at 10:00 p.m.

Sunday: In The Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter takes his astronomy O.W.L. (Ordinary Wizarding Level) and claims to see Venus in the sky. Unfortunately, Venus was not up in June of 1996 when Harry would have been observing. Luckily, Venus is above the horizon for us now. It is a half fist above the western horizon at 9:00 p.m.

Monday: Bellatrix Lestrange is Sirius Black’s cousin. But, certainly not 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. It is three fists above the east-southeastern horizon at 5:00 a.m.

Tuesday: Of course, Bellatrix is in cahoots with “he who must not be named”. Now, that’s a poorly written sentence, using an obscure synonym for “conspiring” and a vague 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 five and a half fists above the east-southeastern horizon at 5:00 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 9:00 p.m.

Thursday: Antares, the brightest star in the constellation Scorpius, is one and a half fists above the south-southwestern horizon at 9:00 p.m. Draco Malfoy was so impressed with this constellation name that he used it for the first name of his son. At this same time, Jupiter is about one fist above the east-southeastern horizon and Saturn is about one and a half fists above the southeastern horizon. Both are to the left of the waxing gibbous Moon.

Friday: Not every woman in the Black family is evil. 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, you better start reading the books.) 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 four fists above the eastern 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 one trillion stars and is 2.5 million light years away. If you are having trouble seeing the Andromeda Galaxy, shoot for an easier target.

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 August 7, 2021

Saturday: Venus is about a half a fist held upright and at arm’s length above due west at 9:00 am. If you can’t find Venus tonight, wait until Tuesday night when it will be to the lower left of the Moon. For a real challenge tonight, try to find Mars, one fist to the lower right of Venus, just above the west-northwestern horizon.

Sunday: “The sky is black (or light polluted), the stars are white (or red or orange or yellow or blue), the whole world gazes upon the sight (except where there are too many city lights or people are lazy.” Wow. It is difficult to write a flowing set of lyrics when there are so many parenthetical thoughts. Most people think of the sky’s blackness as a lack of stars. But dark patches in the Milky Way are actually massive clouds of dust that are blocking the stars behind them. Two of the most prominent are dark nebulae B142 and B143 in the constellation Aquila the eagle. These are easy to find and enjoy with binoculars. First find the bright white star Altair, five fists held upright and at arm’s length above the southeastern horizon at 10 p.m. Then move your binoculars up a little bit to the next bright star Tarazed, about one fifth as bright. B142 and B143 are to the upper right of Tarazed. They make an “E” shape in the sky; fitting because it was American astronomer E. E. Barnard who first proposed that these were dust clouds and not simply big spaces between the stars. For more information about dark nebulae, including many more to look at with binoculars, go to https://goo.gl/9tiqdh.  

Monday: At 11:00 p.m., the very bright planet Jupiter is two fists above the southeastern horizon. Saturn is two fists to the right of Jupiter, above the south-southeastern horizon.

Tuesday: The Perseid meteor shower peaks over the next three late nights/early mornings. The Moon is in the waxing crescent phase so it will not be above the horizon during these times, making this a good year to observe the Perseids. In case you decide to stay in bed this week, the shower is active until about August 24 so you may still enjoy an increased number of meteors later. The meteors appear to come from a point just below the W of the constellation Cassiopeia. This point is about two and a half fists above the northeast horizon at 11 p.m. By dawn, this point is about seven fists above the northeast horizon. For tips about optimizing your viewing this year, go to https://earthsky.org/?p=165416  As your Mother might say, dress warm and sit in a comfortable chair for maximum enjoyment. These meteors are sand to pea-sized bits of rock that fell off of Comet Swift-Tuttle. They are traveling about 40 miles per second as they collide with the Earth and burn up in the atmosphere.

Wednesday: The Gemini Twins are rising right before the Sun. At 5:00 a.m., Pollux is one and a half fists above the east-northeastern horizon. Slightly dimmer Castor is a half a fist above it. Pollux is the brightest star, as observed from Earth, known to have a planet orbiting it. The planet, creatively called Pollux b, has about twice the mass of Jupiter.

Thursday: The bright star Spica is less than a fist to the lower left of the Moon. They are a little more than a fist above the west-southwestern horizon at 9:00 p.m.

Friday: 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 southern horizon at 11:00 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 five fists above the southern 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.

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.