Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Monday, January 10th.  The sun will rise at 8:18.  It’ll be up for 9 hours and 3 minutes, setting at 5:22.   The moon, 2 days before first quarter, will set at 12:07 tomorrow morning.

Over the weekend Venus and Mercury both reached their greatest western elongation from the sun,  That is their greatest separation from the sun, Venus at 47 degrees, and Mercury at 23 degrees.  Venus is easy to spot in the southeast in the morning now.  Mercury rises this morning at 6:40.  By possibly 7:30 there will be a time between the growing twilight and the rising of Mercury to be high enough to be spotted.  Mercury will be close to the horizon off to the lower left of Venus.  Don’t be confused with the star below Venus, that is the red giant star Antares.  Binoculars are a great help is spotting Mercury low in the brightening twilight.  The visibility of Mercury will continue for the rest of the week.

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

Extra

Venus and Mercury at 7:30 a.m. the week of January 10, 2011

This illustration is created using Stellarium.  The sky will be brighter and Mercury fainter than shown here.