Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Ephemeris for Monday, July 7th.  Today the sun will be up for 15 hours and 24 minutes, setting at 9:29.   The Moon, 2 days past first quarter, will set at 2:43 tomorrow morning.  Tomorrow the sun will rise at 6:05.

Tonight the planet Saturn will be seen above the bright gibbous Moon.  At 11 p.m. Saturn will be only 3 moon widths above the moon and may be hard to spot in the Moon’s glare, so that binoculars may be needed to find it.  Other than that the moon makes a nice pointer to the ringed planet.  The rings of Saturn become apparent in telescopes of at least 20 power.  At first the planet looks elliptical,  then the planet can be seen to separate from the rings.  The Moon itself is a fine but bright object for the telescope.  Look near the terminator or sunrise line to see the long lunar shadows delineate the Moon’s crater detail, especially the grand Crater Copernicus near the center of the Moon.

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

Addendum

Saturn and the Moon as they would appear at 11 p.m. on July 7, 2014. Created using Stellarium.

Oops, here’s the Moon for tomorrow night July 8th, 2014. The difference from tonight is the Aristarchus will not be visible, and Sinus Iridium will look cooler. Created using Virtual Moon Atlas. It’s 2 a.m. and I’m too tired to fix it.