Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Ephemeris for Veteran’s Day, Wednesday, November 11th.  The Sun will rise at 7:34.  It’ll be up for 9 hours and 45 minutes, setting at 5:19.  The Moon is new today, and won’t be visible.

Let’s check out the whereabouts of the bright naked eye planets.  The numbers of visible planets is getting a bit thin.  The planet Saturn will be low in the west-southwest after sunset and will set at 6:16 p.m., less than an hour after sunset.  It would be as harder to find than Mercury would be at its best in the evening sky.  And Mercury itself is too close to the direction of the Sun to be spotted.  However in the morning sky there are three bright planets.  Jupiter will be the first to rise, at 2:12 a.m. in the east-northeast.  Mars will rise at 3:20 a.m., followed by Venus at 3:31 a.m.  Mars lies in line between Venus below and Jupiter above, a bit less than a third the way from Venus to Jupiter.  These three planets will continue to separate.

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

Addendum

Saturn can no longer be shown at a reasonable altitude with Stellarium.

Jupiter, Mars and Venus appear in the southeast at 6 a.m., November 11, 2015. Created using Stellarium.

Jupiter and its moons in a telescope at 6 a.m., November 12, 2015. Ganymede enters into Jupiter’s shadow at 5:30 a.m. Created using Stellarium.

Venus as seen in a telescope at 6 a.m. November 12, 2015. This is not to the same scale as the Jupiter image above. Created using Stellarium.

This is a chart showing the sunrise and sunset skies for November 11, 2015 showing the location of the planets and the Moon at that time. Created using my LookingUp program. Click on the image to enlarge.