Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Ephemeris for Monday, July 9th.  Today the sun will be up for 15 hours and 21 minutes, setting at 9:28.   The moon, 1 day before last quarter, will rise at 12:23 tomorrow morning.  Tomorrow the sun will rise at 6:07.

There’s a large constellation located low in the south at about about 11 tonight. It’s Scorpius the scorpion.  Its brightest star is Antares in its heart, a red giant star, that I get calls about from time to time as being a UFO.  It’s due south at 11 this evening. From Antares to the right is a star then a vertical arc of three stars that is its head.  The Scorpion’s tail is a line of stars running down to the left of Antares swooping to the horizon before coming back up and ending in a pair of stars that portray his poisonous stinger.  There is a beautiful star cluster seen in binoculars at that first bend in the tail that is unfortunately too low to appreciate from this far north.  I was very impressed with it when spotting it from the Florida Keys.

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

Addendum

The constellation Scorpius at 11 p.m. on July 9, 2012. Created using Stellarium.

In the Traverse City area the bottom stars just barely clear the horizon.  farther north the constellation will not fully rise above the southern horizon.

The star cluster mentioned is  near the star closest to the south compass point in the view above.

NGC6231 – a great binocular star cluster visible from south of Michigan. Created using Stellarium.

In this view there is a hint of ever more stars visible in a small telescope.  This recreation doesn’t do it justice.