Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Wednesday, October 13th.  The sun will rise at 7:55.  It’ll be up for 11 hours and 6 minutes, setting at 7:01.   The moon, 1 day before first quarter, will set at 11:28 this evening.

Lets take a look at the bright planets for this week. Venus and Mars are very low and pretty much lost in the evening twilight.  Venus is the brightest.  It’s 29.3 million miles away and slowly approaching, and appears as a thin crescent, if you can find it.  It will set at 7:15 p.m.  Mars, though appearing farther from the sun, is too dim to be spotted in the bright twilight.  The planet Jupiter is up at sunset and will move due south at 11:58 p.m..  It is very bright in the southeastern sky, and the brightest starlight object in the sky.  It’s located in Pisces this year and will set at 5:47 a.m.  Comet Hartley 2 may be just visible in binoculars as a fuzzy spot near the northern tip of the constellation Perseus closest to the W shape of Cassiopeia in the northeast.