Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Ephemeris for Tuesday, July 5th.  Today the Sun will be up for 15 hours and 26 minutes, setting at 9:30, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:04.  The Moon, 1 day past new, will set at 10:17 this evening.

Orion, an obscure Greek hero gets a splashy constellation in the winter sky, but the greatest hero of all, Hercules, gets a dim group of stars on the border between the spring and summer stars.  At 11 p.m. Hercules is high and nearly overhead.  It’s located above and right of the bright star, Vega, high in the east.  Hercules’ central feature is a keystone shaped box of stars, called the Keystone, which represents the old boy’s shorts.  From each top corner extend lines of stars that are his legs, from the bottom stars, the rest of his torso and arms extend.  So in one final indignity he’s upside down in our sky. Some see him crouched down, club upraised holding the multi-headed Hydra about to throttle it.

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

Addendum

The constellation Hercules and his neighbors. Created with Stellarium.

Hercules, visualized by Johan Meuris of the Stellarium development team.

M13, the Great Globular Star Cluster in Hercules. Credit: Scott Anttila.