Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Monday, November 7th.  The sun will rise at 7:27.  It’ll be up for 9 hours and 55 minutes, setting at 5:23.   The moon, 3 days before full, will set at 5:24 tomorrow morning.

Jupiter is the planet to spot in the evening sky.  It’s in the east in the early evening.  I’ve talked to some folks who thought it was Venus.  Jupiter is second only to Venus in brightness, but where it is now, opposite the sun in the sky, is a place Venus never can be because its orbit is closer to the sun than the earth.  Jupiter is bright because it is big.  It’s 5 times earth’s distance from the sun, so sunlight is diluted by a factor of 25 by the inverse square law.  It’s 11 times the earth’s diameter.  Square that, and its surface area is roughly 120 times that of the earth, so it reflects more light totally than Venus but appears somewhat fainter because it’s much farther than Venus.  Volume wise Jupiter is 1,300 times the volume of the earth, but is only 318 times as massive as the earth.

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