Home > Constellations, Ephemeris Program, Mythology > 07/09/2013 – Ephemeris – Thank goodness this is as close as scorpions get to northern Michigan

07/09/2013 – Ephemeris – Thank goodness this is as close as scorpions get to northern Michigan

July 9, 2013

Ephemeris for Tuesday, July 9th.  Today the sun will be up for 15 hours and 21 minutes, setting at 9:28.   The moon, 1 day past new, will set at 9:58 this evening.  Tomorrow the sun will rise at 6:07.

Crawling just above the southern horizon at 11 p.m. is the zodiacal constellation of Scorpius the scorpion.  His heart is the red giant star Antares.  Its facing the west or right with a short arc of three stars as its head.  His body and tail drop to the left and scrape the horizon before curving up to the critter’s poisonous stinger of two stars.  It really makes a great scorpion.  One story of the scorpion concerns Orion the hunter the great winter constellation.  In that story Orion was killed by the sting of a scorpion.  Therefore Orion and Scorpius are never seen in the sky at the same time.  That is certainly true around here and for the Greeks, whose legend it is.  However if one travels far enough south that is no longer true.

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

Addendum

Scorpius

Scorpius at 11 p.m. on July 9, 2013. Credit Stellarium. I don’t agree with the artist’s drawing of the scorpion. To me it’s larger. The arc of three stars in the drawing’s right claw to me is its head and start of the claw appendages. I’ve added two star names from the constellation of Libra to the right. The Arabic translation of Zubeneschamali and Zubenelgenubi is North Claw and South Claw respectively. At one time Scorpius was larger than it is depicted today. Click on the image to enlarge.

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