Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Friday, March 11th.  The sun will rise at 7:02.  It’ll be up for 11 hours and 40 minutes, setting at 6:43.   The moon, 1 day before first quarter, will set at 1:52 tomorrow morning.

This weekend we go back to Eastern Daylight Saving Time.  It may be a boon to most folks, lengthening the evening daylight hours, but around here it makes stargazing difficult by pushing it to the late night hours, especially in June or July.  In the old days noon was when the sun was due south in the sky.  Railroad schedules were the impetus for the creation of standard time zones, one hour wide.  Thanks to politics Michigan is in the eastern time zone, rather than the closer central time zone.  We’re about 43 minutes behind Philadelphia, the eastern time meridian.  With the imposition of daylight time, it pushes our time meridian 15 degrees of longitude farther east, out into the Atlantic Ocean.   So late winter, or spring, forward Sunday morning.

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