Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Ephemeris for Independence Day in the United States, Thursday, July 4th.  Today the sun will be up for 15 hours and 27 minutes, setting at 9:30.   The moon, half way from last quarter to new, will rise at 4:05 tomorrow morning.  Tomorrow the sun will rise at 6:03.

Today is Independence Day so  let’s look for some red, white, and blue stars.  Red is easy, the red star Antares is seen in the south at 11 p.m.  White is easy too, the official white calibration star Vega high in the east at 11 p.m.  The blue star is really blue-white.  The brightest of these out at 11 p.m. is Spica, low in the southwest to the right of the brighter Saturn.  The color is best seen in binoculars.  Star colors are quite subtle, and are an indicator of the temperature of their outer gaseous layers.  The temperature of a stars outer layers, in order of their increasing temperatures are red, white and blue.  Of these three the coolest on the outside, Antares is really the hottest inside, using helium as fuel.

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

Addendum

Red Antares, white Vega and blue Spica. Patriotic Stars this evening. Created using Stellarium.