08/03/2012 – Ephemeris – Weekend events here and on Mars.
Ephemeris for Friday, August 3rd. The sun rises at 6:31. It’ll be up for 14 hours and 32 minutes, setting at 9:04. The moon, 2 days past full, will rise at 9:34 this evening.
The Northwestern Michigan College’s Rogers observatory will be open this evening starting at 9 p.m. For views of the heavens including the planet Saturn and the moon. There’s some bright deep sky objects also visible. Mars though up is a very tiny planet and is quite distant. What can’t be seen in a telescope will be visible shortly. Monday at 1:31 a.m. The Curiosity Mars Science Laboratory will land in Gale Crater. If the landing is successful the new rover will be bringing a new arsenal of scientific instruments to probe the martian past. From our vantage point on the earth Mars looks like a tiny yellowish orange disk. We will be back to two operational rovers joining the three operational satellites now orbiting Mars.
Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Addendum
Here’s a movie from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) of Curiosity’s entry descent and landing called Seven Minutes of Terror: http://youtu.be/ISmWAyQxqqs
Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog 