Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Ephemeris for Wednesday, February 21st. The Sun will rise at 7:33. It’ll be up for 10 hours and 46 minutes, setting at 6:19. The Moon, 2 days before first quarter, will set at 12:38 tomorrow morning.

Let’s take our weekly look at the bright planets. All of the bright naked eye planets save two are in the morning sky now. Mercury crossed behind the Sun 4 days ago and will become visible in the evening twilight in a couple of weeks. Also heading away from the Sun after sunset is Venus which sets 51 minutes after the Sun, and might be just visible low in the west-southwest from around 6:30 to about 6:50 p.m. At 7 in this morning’s twilight bright Jupiter is in the south-southwest to the left of it is dimmer Mars and below and right of it the red star Antares. The two are about the same brightness now. Saturn is low in the southeast. Jupiter will rise at 1:06 tomorrow morning, with Mars rising at 3:06. Saturn will end the procession, rising at 4:36 a.m.

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

Addendum

Venus, low in the west-southwest at 6:30 p.m., February 21, 2018. Created using Stellarium.

The crescent Moon as it might be seen in binoculars at 8 p.m. tonight. February 21, 2018. Created using Stellarium.

The morning planets of Jupiter, Mars and Saturn. Seen at 7 a.m. as morning twilight brightens, February 21, 2018. Created using Stellarium.

Jupiter and Saturn with heir brighter satellites this morning at 7 a.m. February 21, 2018. They are displayed at the same scale. Saturn in about twice as far as Jupiter. Its disk is a bit smaller than Jupiter’s so it appears about half as large. The extent of the rings appear to be about the same as Jupiter’s diameter. Created using Stellarium.

Planets at sunset and sunrise of a single night starting with sunset on the right on February 21, 2018. The night ends on the left with sunrise on February 22nd. Click on the image to enlarge. Created using my LookingUp program.