Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Ephemeris for Tuesday, December 30th.  The sun will rise at 8:19.  It’ll be up for 8 hours and 51 minutes, setting at 5:11.   The moon, 2 days past first quarter, will set at 3:38 tomorrow morning.

Let’s look ahead at a few astronomical and space events that will take place in 2015.  Visible for us will be the partial phase of a lunar eclipse in morning twilight of April 4th,  plus there’s a total lunar eclipse visible during the evening hours of September 27th.  Out in space in the asteroid belt the Dawn spacecraft will enter orbit of Ceres, the largest asteroid and dwarf planet Ceres, a spherical world of rock and ice in April.  Further out past the last planet the New Horizons spacecraft will fly by the dwarf planet Pluto and its system of at least 5 satellites: Charon, Nix, Hydra, Styx, and Kerberos on July 14th.   It will take several months to transmit the data and images back to Earth after which the spacecraft will be redirected to a new target.

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

Addendum

Chart for the total lunar eclipse of April 4, 2015. In Michigan we will see on;y the beginning partial phase in morning twilight. Credit: Fred Espenak, NASA/GSFC

Chart for the total lunar eclipse of September 28, 2015. This is the evening of the 27th, EDT in Michigan. Credit: Fred Espenak, NASA/GSFC.

Dawn orbital track past Mars, stopping at Vesta and continuing to Ceres. Credit: NASA/JPL.

Artist conception of the New Horizons spacecraft at Pluto. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute