Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Ephemeris for Thursday, January 26th.  The sun will rise at 8:08.  It’ll be up for 9 hours and 34 minutes, setting at 5:42.   The moon, 3 days past new, will set at 9:46 this evening.

The waxing crescent moon will appear near the bright planet Venus tonight in the southwestern sky after sunset.  They were actually closer earlier today, although not that close.  The moon happens to be north of the ecliptic plane, which is actually the plane of the earth’s orbit of the sun.  Venus is a bit below.    The moon has to be close to that plane at new or full moon for eclipses to take place.  The moon’s orbit is tilted at 5 degrees to that plane, and crosses it twice a month.  So we get eclipse seasons twice a year.  The next eclipse is a solar eclipse May 20th, which we’ll see the start of at sunset here.  Venus will be close to that plane at its inferior conjunction June 5th when it passes in front of the sun in transit.  We’ll see the first 3 hours of that before sunset.

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

Addendum

Venus and the moon on the evening January 26, 2012. Created using Stellarium.