Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Oct 20.  This is Bob Moler with Ephemeris for Monday, October 20th.  The sun will rise at 8:04.  It’ll be up for 10 hours and 45 minutes, setting at 6:49.   The moon, 3 days before new, will rise at 5:43 tomorrow morning.

A marvelous member of the autumn skies can be found low in the east northeast after 9 in the evening.  It is the famous star cluster called the Pleiades or the Seven Sisters.  I might also add the ‘Tiny Dipper’.  Many people can spot a tiny dipper shape in its six or seven stars, and mistake it for the Little Dipper.  As nearsighted as I am, though corrected, I’ve never been able to see more than a few stars and a bit of fuzz.  However with binoculars, even I can see over a hundred stars appear along with the dipper shape of the brightest.  The fuzz I saw was unresolved stars, but in photographs the Pleiades actually contain wisps of the gas they are passing through currently.  In Greek mythology the sisters were daughters of the god Atlas.

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.. Created using Stellarium.

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