Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Thursday, June 16th.  Today the sun will be up for 15 hours and 33 minutes, setting at 9:29.   The moon, 1 day past full, will rise at 10:23 this evening.  Tomorrow the sun will rise at 5:56.

One of the coolest galaxies visible in a telescope is the Whirlpool Galaxy, also known as M51, near the handle of the Big Dipper.  With a large enough amateur telescope, the spiral pattern can just be glimpsed.  Usually it takes long exposure photographs to reveal the spiral structures of the galaxies that have them.  A few weeks ago a supernova appeared in the outer spiral arm of the Whirlpool galaxy, visible in medium size telescopes of 8 inch diameter and up.  Based on the study of the light given off by the supernova it appears that this is was a massive star whose core collapsed allowing the rest of the star to explode briefly making the star billions of times brighter than the sun.  The supernova will gradually fade in an expanding cloud of gas.

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