Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Thursday, December 30th.  The sun will rise at 8:19.  It’ll be up for 8 hours and 51 minutes, setting at 5:11.   The moon, 2 days before new, will rise at 4:46 tomorrow morning.

Visible in the east southeast above and  left of Sirius the brightest night time star which is low in the southeast at 9 p.m. tonight is the bright star Procyon in the constellation Canis Minor, or lesser dog.  Only one other star can be found in Canis Minor.  Perhaps it’s a hot dog.  If Sirius is the Dog Star then Procyon should be the Little Dog Star.  Procyon is an interesting name.  It means “Before the dog”, which is an allusion to the fact that Procyon, though east of Sirius actually rises before it.  This is due to Procyon’s more northerly position.  This effect doesn’t work south of the equator, however.  Procyon is a star much like Sirius but farther away.  It’s 11.41 to Sirius’ 8.6 light years away.  And like Sirius it even has a small white dwarf star in its system.

* Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.  They may be different for your location.