Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Ephemeris for Thursday, March 7th.  The sun will rise at 7:08.  It’ll be up for 11 hours and 29 minutes, setting at 6:38.   The moon, 3 days past last quarter, will rise at 4:57 tomorrow morning.

At 9 this evening, the faint constellation, and member of the Zodiac, Cancer the crab is located in the south half way between the bright stars Castor and Pollux of the constellation Gemini, high in the south and the bright star Regulus in Leo the lion in the southeast.  Cancer is very dim, looking like an upside-down Y.  In the center of Cancer is a fuzzy spot to the unaided eye.  In binoculars or a low power telescope this fuzzy spot becomes a cluster of stars.  It is the Beehive cluster also cataloged as M44.  At 577 light years away, according to the latest measurements, it is one of the closest star clusters, but more distant than the Pleiades and Hyades the face of Taurus the bull.  Before it was seen in a telescope the cluster was known as Praesepe, the manger.

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

Addendum

Cancer Finder Chart. Created using Stellarium.