Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Ephemeris for Friday, December 7th.  The sun will rise at 8:06.  It’ll be up for 8 hours and 56 minutes, setting at 5:02.   The moon, 1 day past last quarter, will rise at 2:19 tomorrow morning.

The Search for the Star of Bethlehem, will be presented at this evening’s meeting of the Grand Traverse Astronomical Society at Northwestern Michigan College’s Rogers Observatory starting at 8 p.m.  This is my biennial presentation.  We’ll check out the Biblical passages that mention the star,  Johannes Kepler’s discovery that started the search some 1600 years later, ancient Chinese records, ancient writers all contribute to the quest.  Thanks to Kepler, Newton, Einstein and others plus the power of computers we can go back and see the skies, and computer generated recreations of planet positions to see what the star might have been.  Starting at 9 p.m. Is our December star party at the observatory.  All are welcome.

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

Addendum

Title slide for the program.