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08/01/2018 – Ephemeris – The bright planets for the first of August
Ephemeris for Wednesday, August 1st. The Sun rises at 6:29. It’ll be up for 14 hours and 39 minutes, setting at 9:08. The Moon, 3 days before last quarter, will rise at 11:43 this evening.
It’s Wednesday and time to look for and at the bright planets. Four of them are visible in the evening sky. The brilliant beacon of Venus will be visible in the western twilight from about 9:30 p.m. until it sets at 10:52 p.m. Jupiter will be in the southwest as it gets dark. It is only outshone by Venus, the Moon, and currently Mars. Jupiter will set at 12:48 a.m. Saturn will start the evening low in the south-southeast and will stay relatively low, above the Teapot of Sagittarius. It will be due south at 11:15 p.m. and will set at 3:41 a.m.. Mars will be low in the southeast as the skies darken tonight. and is now 35.8 million miles (57.6 million km) away. It is being slowly left behind by the faster moving Earth.
The times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Addendum
Evening planets visible at 10 p.m. August 1st, 2018. Also shown are the zodiacal constellations and the ecliptic. The ecliptic, which is the plane of the Earth’s orbit and near where than rest of the planets appear because the solar system is pretty flat. Also note that Venus, which will reach greatest eastern elongation from the Sun on the 17th, is not very high above the horizon. That’s because the ecliptic meets the horizon at a shallow angle. In spring Venus would be very high on the west. The projection shows Venus and Mars a bit higher in the sky than they actually are. Click on the image to enlarge. Created using Stellarium.
What the Moon might look like in binoculars at 2 a.m., August 2nd, 2018. Created using Stellarium.
Venus, Jupiter, Saturn and Mars with the same magnification at 10 p.m. August 1, 2018.
Mars is also shown enlarged. It seems that the global dust storm is abating, so the albedo features are beginning to be seen. Created using Cartes du Ciel (Sky Charts).
Planets and the Moon at sunset and sunrise of a single night starting with sunset on the right on August 1, 2018. The night ends on the left with sunrise on the 2nd. Mars, being close to opposition and very much south of the ecliptic is not in the sky at either sunrise or sunset, I showed a patch of sky with Mars in it in the at sunset still below the horizon. Click on the image to enlarge. Created using my LookingUp program.
Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog 