Archive
05/31/2012 – Ephemeris – Previewing June skies
Ephemeris for Thursday, May 31st. Today the sun will be up for 15 hours and 19 minutes, setting at 9:20. The moon, 3 days past first quarter, will set at 3:41 tomorrow morning. Tomorrow the sun will rise at 6:00.
Let’s preview June skies. There’ll be a lot of sun in June. The daylight hours will increase a bit from 15 hours and 20 minutes on the 1st to 15 hours and 33 minutes on the 20tht, retreating back to 15 hours 30 minutes at month’s end. The big event of the month will be the Transit of Venus across the sun on June 5th. We’ll see the first part of the transit starting about 6:04 p.m. That evening. I’ll have more information on how to safely view this event. Remember looking directly at the sun is dangerous. There will be safe viewing of the event at Traverse City’s Open Space. The next Venus transit will be in 105 ½ years. The extra day in February this leap year pushed the start of summer up to the 20th at 7:07 p.m.
Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
05/30/2012 – Ephemeris – Where are the bright planets tonight?
Ephemeris for Wednesday, May 30th. Today the sun will be up for 15 hours and 17 minutes, setting at 9:19. The moon, 2 days past first quarter, will set at 3:07 tomorrow morning. Tomorrow the sun will rise at 6:00.
Let’s see what’s happening with the bright planets for this week. Venus is now very difficult to spot low in the west northwest just after sunset. The next time you’ll see it will be passing in front of the sun June 5th, a rare event called a transit. Venus will set at 10:11 p.m. Venus is 27.3 million miles away and won’t get much closer. It is an incredibly thin crescent in telescopes. Mars is in the southwest in the evening in the constellation of Leo the lion with its unmistakable bright reddish color. It has resumed its eastward motion toward Virgo. Mars will be setting in the west at 2:42 a.m. Saturn will be in the south above the bright star Spica this now. It’s due south at 10:37 p.m. and will set at 4:13 a.m.
Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
05/29/2012 – Ephemeris – The moon tonight
Ephemeris for Tuesday, May 29th. Today the sun will be up for 15 hours and 16 minutes, setting at 9:18. The moon, 1 day past first quarter, will set at 2:38 tomorrow morning. Tomorrow the sun will rise at 6:01.
The moon tonight is a wonderful sight for binoculars or a small telescope. There are some very nice craters now revealed near the terminator, the line between day and night on the moon. The terminator in the two weeks between new and full is the sunrise line on the moon. From the top or north on the moon is the flat floored crater Plato Then about midway down the moon and right on the terminator is the beautiful crater Copernicus. Then to the south end of the moon is the bright and crisp crater Tycho. Its splash marks called rays will be better revealed at full moon. At the bottom of the moon, just coming into light is the huge crater Clavius. A telescope will reveal smaller craters within.
Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Addendum
The moon on 5/29/2012 showing large craters on the terminator. Created using Virtual Moon Atlas.
05/28/2012 – Ephemeris – Memorials in the solar system
Ephemeris for Memorial Day, Monday, May 28th. Today the sun will be up for 15 hours and 14 minutes, setting at 9:17. The moon, at first quarter today, will set at 2:10 tomorrow morning. Tomorrow the sun will rise at 6:01.
Memorial day is a day of remembrance for those who paid the ultimate price for our freedom. When astronomers name craters or other features on planets or moons, they are names of those who have gone before. For instance craters near the moon’s north and south poles are named for explorers of the corresponding earthly pole. The Challenger astronauts have craters named for them in the moon system of Uranus, from discovery pictures relayed to the earth by Voyager 2 a few days before the Challenger accident. The Mars Rover Spirit is itself a silent sentinel in the Columbia Hills on Mars, its features named for the Columbia astronauts who died 11 months before Spirit landed.
Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
05/25/2012 – Ephemeris – Of conjunctions, superior and inferior
Ephemeris for Friday, May 25th. Today the sun will be up for 15 hours and 10 minutes, setting at 9:14. The moon, 3 days before first quarter, will set at 12:45 tomorrow morning. Tomorrow the sun will rise at 6:03.
The planet Mercury will pass the behind the sun this weekend, in what is called superior conjunction. It is called that because Mercury is beyond or superior to the sun. Venus and Mercury can have both superior and inferior conjunctions because they are inferior planets, not a statement of their quality, but simply because they reside in orbits between the earth and the sun. A conjunction occurs when two solar system bodies pass each other from our point of view. Anyway Mercury will slowly move into our evening sky and by July first might be glimpsed in evening twilight. Mercury can be seen near its greatest elongations or separations from the sun on spring evenings and autumn mornings. July will push it a bit.
Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
05/24/2012 – Ephemeris – Phases and shadows on the moon
Ephemeris for Thursday, May 24th. Today the sun will be up for 15 hours and 8 minutes, setting at 9:13. The moon, half way from new to first quarter, will set at 12:11 tomorrow morning. Tomorrow the sun will rise at 6:04.
The fat crescent moon tonight is like the crescent Venus, with the sun shining on mostly the far side. I notice that some folks think that the earth is casting its shadow on the moon to cause the crescent. That isn’t correct. The earth does cast its shadow on the moon sometimes, but only at full moon, but only about one in 6 full moons, and we usually don’t see many of these. The phases of the moon are simply the light and shadow of a ball in the sunlight. In fact, if before sunset you can see the moon, and you are in sunlight also. Hold the ball up next to the moon. You will see that the ball will have the same phase as the moon. This is because the moon is close to the earth.
05/23/2012 – Ephemeris – Where are the bright planets this week?
Ephemeris for Wednesday, May 23rd. Today the sun will be up for 15 hours and 6 minutes, setting at 9:12. The moon, 3 days past new, will set at 11:33 this evening. Tomorrow the sun will rise at 6:05.
Let’s see what’s happening with the bright planets for this week. Venus is in the west as it gets dark. Enjoy it now, because it will be gone in less than 2 weeks. Venus will set at 11:07 p.m. in the west northwest. That’s 33 minutes earlier than last week, so it appears to be drawing closer to the sun. Venus is 29.5 million miles away and closing slowly. It is a beautiful brilliant growing crescent in telescopes. Mars is high in the south southwest in the evening in the constellation of Leo with its unmistakable bright reddish color. It’s beginning to resume its eastward motion toward Virgo. Mars will be setting in the west at 3:05 a.m. Saturn will be in the southeast moving above above the bright star Spica.
Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Addendum
The evening sky with the remaining bright planets at 10 p.m. tonight. Created using Stellarium.
05/22/2012 – Ephemeris – The moon appears near Venus tonight
Ephemeris for Tuesday, May 22nd. Today the sun will be up for 15 hours and 4 minutes, setting at 9:11. The moon, 2 days past new, will set at 10:50 this evening. Tomorrow the sun will rise at 6:06.
Tonight the extremely thin crescent moon will appear below and left of the planet Venus. Venus itself is an extremely thin crescent, just two weeks from passing directly in front of the sun in a rare transit part of which will be visible from here. Venus is a crescent because we are looking mostly on its night side, with just a sliver of light on its sunlit edge. Even though Venus shows such a small sunlit sliver, it’s still very bright, since its nearness to us makes it appear larger in our sky. You can even see the crescent in binoculars. Venus is so bright because it’s close to us, just slightly smaller than the earth, but socked in by while sulfuric acid clouds that reflect most of the suns light covering a runaway green house effect beneath.
Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Addendum
Venus with the moon on the evening of May 22, 2012. Created using Stellarium.
Our May 20th, 2012 solar eclipse experiences
We knew seeing the eclipse would be a close thing. We members of the Grand Traverse Astronomical Society had a full day of events. It started with a full day at Northwestern Michigan College at their annual fund raising Barbecue. Gary and Eileen Carlisle, Ron and Jan Uthe, Richard Kuschell, and myself had telescopes aimed at the sun. Joe Brooks our meteor man was holding forth in one of the classrooms with his meteorite collection. This went from 10 a.m. setup to 5 p.m. take down.
I immediately headed 30 miles westward to the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, and Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive and the Lake Michigan Overlook and our planned eclipse viewing party with the park rangers. The rest of our group except Joe followed a bit later. The sky was milky all day, and we had puffy clouds in Traverse City at the barbecue. Watching the cloud animations on weatherunderground.com gave me some hope that the cloud bank we knew was over Wisconsin might just hold off so we could get the major part of what we projected would be the first 50 minutes of the eclipse before sunset. There was also a spear of thunderstorms coming northward up the lake from the south. The sky was so milky that we had no idea how high the cloud bank we knew was there actually was.
When I arrived at the entrance to the scenic drive the rangers told me that they may change our location due to blowing sand. When I got to the overlook the sand was indeed being blown by gusts of wind coming from the southwest.
Lake Michigan Overlook Looking South
The above picture is from my scouting trip the week before. We set up near that dune, which sheltered us pretty well from the wind. However when I got home, I was full of sand, especially my hair.
It wasn’t until about 10 minutes before the start of the eclipse that the cloud bank was revealed. It then was a race between the moon and the cloud bank. The moon won by about 5 minutes. My old friend John Russell, a professional photographer, was there and has posted an eclipse image on his Facebook page.
About 10 minutes later we found that the clouds were getting ugly, and approaching rapidly.
Looking in vain for the sun. Isn’t that a thunderhead on the left?
That was it for the eclipse. The rangers counted about 200 people who attended.
Gary Carlisle with binoculars and Richard Kuschell look for Venus above the cloud bank.
Gary Carlisle, who has a knack for finding planets in twilight, spotted Venus above the cloud bank and pointed his Celestron 8 telescope toward it. Richard Kuschell located it too with his 4″ refractor to give the folks remaining a bonus view of the thin crescent of Venus.
We then packed up and headed back home with lightning to the south and a smattering of rain.
05/21/2012 – Ephemeris – What are the next solar eclipses to be visile from Northern Michigan?
Ephemeris for Monday, May 21st. Today the sun will be up for 15 hours and 2 minutes, setting at 9:10. The moon, 1 day past new, will set at 10:01 this evening. Tomorrow the sun will rise at 6:07.
With yesterday’s solar eclipse now history, when will we see the next one? The next solar eclipse visible from northern Michigan is another partial eclipse interrupted by sunset. That one’s on October 24, 2014, about two and a half years from now. It will be a partial eclipse for anyone able to see it. The central part of the moon’s shadow will miss earth to the north. In three years after that is a total eclipse whose path of totality crosses the United States from Oregon to South Carolina. That one is special to me. It will be the third saros periods of the first total eclipse I saw, back on July 20, 1963. Eclipses repeat in 18 years 10 or 11 1/3 days called a saros. The August 21, 2017 is that eclipse.
Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog 