Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Thursday, January 20th.  The sun will rise at 8:12.  It’ll be up for 9 hours and 21 minutes, setting at 5:34.   The moon, 1 day past full, will rise at 7:00 this evening.

A bright star called Capella is now nearly overhead in the east.  Capella is the highest of winter’s seven brilliant first magnitude stars.  Capella never quite sets for anyone north of Ludington.  Due to its brightness, and being the closest first magnitude star to the pole, Capella appears to move slowly as the earth rotates, and spends summer and autumn evenings close to the northern horizon, and has in years past elicited a few phone calls and other queries about that ‘bright object in the northeast’.  Capella belongs to the pentagonal constellation of Auriga the Charioteer.  Capella represents a mother goat he is holding.  Three stars in a thin triangle nearby are her kids.  The star at the top of the triangle is an eclipsing binary star with a 27 year period.

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