Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Wednesday, September 29th.  The sun will rise at 7:37.  It’ll be up for 11 hours and 48 minutes, setting at 7:26.   The moon, 1 day before last quarter, will rise at 10:55 this evening.

Lets take a look at the bright planets for this week. Venus and Mars are very low in the twilight.  Venus is the brightest.  It’s 36 million miles away and slowly approaching, and appears as a thin crescent.  It will set at 8:09 p.m. Mars is above, left of Venus, and much dimmer.  I doubt if you could spot it.  The planet Jupiter is up at sunset and will move due south at 2:59 a.m..  It’s located in Pisces this year and will set at 6:51 a.m.  Mercury is difficult to spot low in the east before sunrise.  It will rise tomorrow morning at 6:30 a.m.  Mercury is visible in the morning twilight in the east.  6:45 to 7:10 a.m. is the best time to spot it.  Comet Hartley 2 may be just visible in binoculars as a fuzzy spot just right of the W shape of the constellation Cassiopeia in the evening now.

Times are for the Grand Traverse Area of Northern Michigan, USA.