Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

This is Ephemeris for Monday, April 20th. Today the Sun will be up for 13 hours and 45 minutes, setting at 8:34, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:47. The Moon, 2 days before new, will rise at 6:37 tomorrow morning.

The brightest star in the constellation Leo, which is high in the south these evenings is Regulus, whose name means “Little King”. It is appropriate due to its position in the heart of the king of beasts Leo the lion. Regulus is dead last in brightness of the 21 first magnitude stars, the brightest night-time stars. Even so, it is much brighter than the Sun. It is 79 light years away. The Sun would require a telescope to be spotted at that distance. Regulus appears to be a quadruple star system. The bright star itself is really two stars with a bright star orbited by a much dimmer star every 40 days. There are two dimmer stars much further out that share Regulus’ motion through space. There are an infinite variety of star system arrangements in the galaxy and beyond.

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

Addendum

The naked eye stars of Leo, including Regulus at 9:30 p.m. April 20, 2020. Note that Algieba is a binary star that can be seen in small telescopes. The yellow line that passes Regulus is the ecliptic the apparent path of the Sun. The Moon and planets also hang out near that line. Created using Cartes du Ciel (Sky Charts).