Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Ephemeris for Friday, May 11th.  Today the sun will be up for 14 hours and 40 minutes, setting at 8:59.   The moon, 1 day before last quarter, will rise at 2:09 tomorrow morning.  Tomorrow the sun will rise at 6:17.

The bright blue star Spica can be found in the southeast as it gets dark now.  It’s one of the fainter of the 21 first magnitude stars.  It lies in the constellation of Virgo the virgin, and lies very close to the path of the sun, moon and planets in the sky.  Saturn is just to the left of it this year.  Spica is a binary star, whose brighter component is drawn into an ellipsoid by the tidal effect of the companion.  They orbit each other in only 4 days.  Spica is 260 light years away and over 3,000 times brighter than the sun.  An Egyptian temple at Thebes was oriented to the setting point of Spica.  The change in the setting point over time allowed the Greek astronomer Hipparchus to discover the precession of the equinoxes.

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

Addendum

Saturn and Spica on May 11, 2012. Created using Stellarium.