Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Ephemeris for Thursday, November 15th.  The sun will rise at 7:39.  It’ll be up for 9 hours and 34 minutes, setting at 5:14.   The moon, 2 days past new, will set at 7:03 this evening.

The lonely bright star low in the south at 8 p.m. these evenings is Fomalhaut the harbinger of autumn in my book.  Fomalhaut means fishes mouth and is located at the head of Piscis Austrinus, a very dim constellation.  Fomalhaut is a young white star only 400 million years old with a disk of dust surrounding it.  In an outer dust ring, 10 years ago the Hubble Space Telescope discovered a spot.  Four years later astronomers discovered that the spot moved along the dust lane and announced the first direct discovery of an exoplanet.  There’s been some controversy ever since, about is it really a planet or just a clump of material.  It seems at this time that there is a planet there but it is shrouded by a cloud of dust, so that the planet cannot be detected.

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

Addendum

Fomalhaut in the south at 8 p.m. on November 15, 2012. Created using Stellarium.

Fomalhaut and possible planet via the Hubble Space Telescope. Courtesy NASA

Click on above image to enlarge.