Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Ephemeris for Thursday, March 22nd. The Sun will rise at 7:42. It’ll be up for 12 hours and 15 minutes, setting at 7:57. The Moon, 2 days before first quarter, will set at 1:48 tomorrow morning.

The bright star Aldebaran will appear below the Moon tonight. Over the past two years we’ve seen the Moon cover Aldebaran in an event called an occultation on several occasions. There will be a similar occultation tonight for the far northern part of the Earth. Though the series of Aldebaran occultations won’t end until September this year, we won’t see any of them. The Next season of monthly Aldebaran occultations for the Earth won’t start until 2033. It will last a bit more than 2 years. We’ll see our share of those occultations then. Other bright, first magnitude, stars that can be occulted by the Moon are Pollux in Gemini, Regulus in Leo, Spica in Virgo and Antares in Scorpius.

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

Addendum

The star Aldebaran, the bloodshot eye of Taurus the bull at 9 p.m. tonight, March 22, 2018 to be seen below the crescent Moon. The rest of the face of Taurus, the V-shaped stars of the star cluster called the Hyades will be visible in binoculars. Created using Stellarium. The Moon will be brighter than Aldebaran, not the opposite as seen here.