Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Ephemeris for Friday, October 25th.  The sun will rise at 8:11.  It’ll be up for 10 hours and 30 minutes, setting at 6:41.   The moon, 1 day before last quarter, will rise at 11:56 this evening.

The lonely bright star low in the south at 9 p.m. these evenings is Fomalhaut the harbinger of autumn in my book.  Fomalhaut has a recently discovered planet orbiting it Fomalhaut lower case b.  However astronomers just announced the discovery of a third star in the system.  I didn’t know it had two.  The second star, Fomalhaut (capital) B is a binocular object 2 degrees of 4 moon widths south or below Fomalhaut.   The just reported third star (now Fomalhaut big C) is a red dwarf star nearly 6 degrees or 11 moon diameters to the north of Fomalhaut or should I say Fomalhaut A.  This star is 3 light years from the primary star which is itself only 25 light years from us.  I think the more we study this star the more alphabet soup we’ll find.

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

Addendum

The bright star Fomalhaut all alone at 8:30 p.m. Created using Stellarium.