Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Thursday, January 5th.  The sun will rise at 8:19.  It’ll be up for 8 hours
and 57 minutes, setting at 5:16.   The moon, half way from first quarter to full, will set at 5:59 tomorrow morning.

Trying out that new Christmas telescope can be challenging on cold winter nights.  Set it up indoors first and get used to it.  The moon and planets are the easiest targets for the new telescope owner.  Locate the moon first if it’s out as it is tonight and make sure that small telescope or reflex finder that pots a red dot on the object is aligned with the telescope.  Then you can go off and locate the planets.  Venus is nice and bright in the southwest early in the evening.  A telescope will show a tiny nearly circular orb.  But wait a couple of months and it will become a large crescent.  Jupiter is always a great sight with its four moon shuttling from one side to the other of the planet from night to night.  And don’t forget Jupiter itself with its cloud bands.

* Times, as always are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.