Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Ephemeris for Wednesday, March 7th.  The sun will rise at 7:08.  It’ll be up for 11 hours and 30 minutes, setting at 6:38.   The moon, 1 day before full, will set at 6:47 tomorrow morning.

Let’s see what’s happening with the bright planets for this week.  Mercury will make a brief appearance in the west after sunset.  It will set at 8:15.  Venus is brilliant in the western sky after sunset and will set at 10:39 in the west.  Jupiter the second brightest planet after Venus is located just above it.  They are approaching each other.  Jupiter will set at 10:57 p.m.. Mars is up by  sunset in the east and is in the constellation Leo the lion.  It is 62.6 million miles away .  It’s now as bright as most first magnitude stars.  Mars will pass due south at 12:37 a.m. and will be setting in the west at sunrise. Saturn will rise at 10:00 p.m. just to the left of the bright star Spica in the east southeast.  The moon will appear near it on Saturday evening.

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

Addendum

Below is Mars a photo by Scott Anttila.

Mars on the morning of March 5, 2012 by Scott Anttila

Scott’s description:  “Near 100% illumination, Syrtis Major, the Horse Tail, small polar cap, clouds all around the equatorial area.  It is a quick and dirty processing of the Image.  There might be more detail that can be teased out when I have more time.”

Syrtis Major is the large dark area.  The name means Great Swamp.  i am unfamiliar with the Horse Tail.  I’m guessing that it’s the linear dark feature on the lower left of the image.  If so the proper name is Sinus Sabaeus.  Sinus is “Bay”.  Ther are no bays or swamps on bone dry Mars or for that matter seas on the moon.  The names were established before the nature of these features were known.

The sky after sunset showing all the evening planets. Created using Stellarium.

This is from Monday, but still pretty close to tonight’s view.