Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

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.