Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Ephemeris for Friday, August 30th.  The sun will rise at 7:02.  It’ll be up for 13 hours and 19 minutes, setting at 8:22.   The moon, 2 days past last quarter, will rise at 2:25 tomorrow morning.

Let’s look at the skies for the month of September. The sun will moving at its greatest speed in its retreat to the south. Daylight hours in the Interlochen/Traverse City area and will drop from 13 hours and 13 minutes Sunday to 11 hours 44 minutes on the 30th. The altitude of the sun above the southern horizon at local noon will be 54 degrees Sunday, and will descend to 42 degrees on the 30th. The season of summer is getting short, so enjoy it while you can. Summer ends and autumn begins at 4:44 p.m. on September 22nd.   On the 18th Saturn will be overtaken by Venus as Venus increases its separation from the Sun and Saturn moves around toward the sun.  We’ll soon lose Saturn in its glare.

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

Addendum

Star chart for September 15, 2013 at 10 p.m. Created using my program LookingUp.

The constellation abbreviations, names and bright star names are found here.

• The arrow from the pointer stars of the Big Dipper to Polaris the North Star, near the north celestial pole.
• Follow the arc of the handle of the Big Dipper to Arcturus.
• A Leaky Dipper drips on Leo
• The Summer Triangle (in red)