Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Ephemeris for Monday, April 23rd.  The sun rises at 6:44.  It’ll be up for 13 hours and 53 minutes, setting at 8:37.   The moon, 2 days past new, will set at 11:13 this evening.

This evening the thin crescent moon will appear near the Pleiades, or Seven Sisters.  They will appear just to the right of the thin sliver of the moon.  If you look closely at the moon the entire Moon will be visible.  That’s because the nearly full Earth is shining on it.  The phase of the earth in the moon’s sky is exactly the opposite of the moon’s phase in the earth’s sky.  The effect is called earth shine and was first explained by Leonardo DaVinci.  For future astronauts spending a two week night on the moon’s near side, the full earth in its skies will be much brighter than the full moon looks in our skies.  The earth covers 16 times the sky as the moon and is more than twice as reflective as the moon.  The moon will continue to move eastward and will be near Venus tomorrow.

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

Addendum

The moon and the Pleiades on April 23rd at 10 p.m. Created using Stellarium.

Note that Stellarium shows a photograph for the Pleiades.  The blue reflection nebula is not visible to the eye, and the stars of the Pleiades aren’t that bright in comparison to the moon.