Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Ephemeris for Friday, January 16th.  The sun will rise at 8:16.  It’ll be up for 9 hours and 13 minutes, setting at 5:29.   The moon, 3 days past last quarter, will rise at 5:09 tomorrow morning.

The great winter constellation or star group Orion the Hunter, is located in the south-southeastern sky at 9 p.m.  His elongated rectangle of a torso is almost vertical.  In the center of the rectangle are three stars in a line that make his belt.  As a hunter, especially one of old, he has two hunting dogs.  The larger, Canis Major can be found by following the three belt stars of Orion down and to the left.  There lies the  brilliant star called Sirius, also known as the Dog Star.  It’s in the heart of a stick figure dog low in the southeast facing Orion that appears to be begging.  I’ll have more to say about Sirius on Monday, but there’s a fine star cluster, caller M41, at the 5 o’clock position from Sirius easily visible in binoculars or a small telescope.

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

Addendum

Orion and his hunting dogs with pointers as seen at 9 p.m. in the second half of January. Created using Stellarium.