Archive
Announcing Starry Starry Nights – August 31, 2011
Starry Starry Night Ad
This is an ad proof. The ad contains a typo “star grazing” instead of “star gazing”. Or is it? I was never fond of the term star gazing. Now star grazing: that’s what we do at star parties, move from one celestial wonder to the next, as if we’re grazing the heavens for its choicest wonders.
The photo in this ad was taken by my granddaughter Nicole (Coley) Farrell. After a lot of standard “astronomer at the eyepiece of the telescope” shots, she was reviewing the shots with her mother who also took about half of the shots. I turned the telescope her way, looking through the finder and shouted “Hey Coley!” And this picture was the result.
08/16/11 – Ephemeris – Solar conjunctions today of Mercury and Venus
Tuesday, August 16th. The sun rises at 6:45. It’ll be up for 14 hours and 0 minutes, setting at 8:46. The moon, 3 days past full, will rise at 9:38 this evening.
Today we have an interesting coincidence. Both Venus and Mercury will be in conjunction with the sun. Astrologers may make a big deal out of it but this time astronomers won’t. A conjunction means that two solar system bodies are just north and south of each other. At 8:07 this morning Venus will be just north of the sun in superior conjunction. That is it is beyond the sun. And at 9:03 this evening Mercury will be somewhat south of the sun in inferior conjunction. Thai is it is between the earth and the sun. Mercury will be going into our morning sky, while Venus will begin to appear in the evening sky later this fall. But the coolest thing of all will be Venus’ next inferior conjunction June 6th, 2012. It will cross the face of the sun in a rare transit.
* Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog 