Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Ephemeris for Tuesday, January 24th.  The Sun will rise at 8:09.  It’ll be up for 9 hours and 31 minutes, setting at 5:40.  The Moon, 3 days before new, will rise at 6:08 tomorrow morning.

This morning look low in the southeast to see the thin crescent Moon with the planet Saturn below and to the right.  The Moon passed Saturn a little after they rose.  Saturn is quite far south in our skies, almost as far south as the Sun was on the winter solstice on December 21st.  It will take a while to rise high enough in deep twilight or darkness for good views with a telescope.  When Saturn or any planet is low on the horizon we are looking at it through a lot of our atmosphere.  Beside draining about half its brightness that atmospheric motions make the planet fuzzy in telescopes.  Yes, you can still see the rings, but the gaps on each end between the rings and the planet may not be distinct, and its large moon Titan may not be visible at all.

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

Addendum

The morning planets and the Moon at 7 a.m. this morning, January 24th. Because planetarium programs don’t show a thin crescent very well, I’ve enlarged the Moon by a factor of 4 times to make the Moon show up at all.  Click on the image to enlarge. Created using Stellarium.