Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Ephemeris for Thursday, October 24th.  The sun will rise at 8:09.  It’ll be up for 10 hours and 33 minutes, setting at 6:42.   The moon, 2 days before last quarter, will rise at 11:01 this evening.

We’re a month into autumn.  Looking to the east northeast low in the sky at 9 p.m. there will be a hazy patch of light, or a tiny dipper of stars, depending on your eyesight and sky conditions.  This is the Pleiades or seven sisters of Greek mythology.  The Pleiades has a rich mythology in all cultures, which we will check out occasionally until they leave the night skies in the spring.  The Pleiades is a star cluster, where stars are formed at the same time, in this case about 100 million years ago.  It has left its cloud of gas and dust from which the stars formed, however long exposure photographs show that the Pleiades is passing through another thin cloud of gas and dust.  The Pleiades is one of the closest star clusters to us at 425 light years.

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

Addendum

Looking to the east northeast at the Pleiades: 9 p.m. on October 24, 2013. Created using Stellarium,

The Pleiades, about what you’d see in binoculars.