Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Ephemeris for Friday, March 9th.  The sun will rise at 7:04.  It’ll be up for 11 hours and 36 minutes, setting at 6:41.   The moon, 1 day past full, will rise at 8:47 this evening.

The moon will be passing by the bright star Spica and the planet Saturn tomorrow evening.  They will make a neat triangle with the moon at the point below.  I should remind everyone that the moon will only pass these object from our point of view.  We are lining up the nearby moon, only a quarter million miles away with Saturn, nearly a billion miles away, and Spica trillion and trillions of miles away.  Though the heavens appear as a sphere overhead, it is unimaginably deep.  The ancients called the heavens the firmament, meaning that it was literally solid.  It was, according to Genesis, placed there to divide the waters above from that below. We find now that time is as deep into the past as space is deep, some 13.7 billion years.

Not mentioned in the program:  Daylight Time will start at 2 a.m. Sunday March 11th at 2 a.m.

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

Addendum

Below is The moon below Spica and Saturn at 11 p.m. on Saturday, march 10, 2012.

The Moon, Spica and Saturn at 11 p.m March 10, 2012. Chart created using Stellarium.