Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

This is Ephemeris for Earth Day, Wednesday, April 22nd. Today the Sun will be up for 13 hours and 51 minutes, setting at 8:37, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:44. The Moon is new today, and won’t be visible.

Let’s look at the naked-eye planets for this week. Venus is our evening star shining brightly in the west. It will set at 12:35 a.m. The rest of the planet action is in the morning sky where there are three planets fairly close together in the south-southeast. Bright Jupiter will rise first at 2:55 a.m. Followed by Saturn at 3:11 a.m. Mars, stretching its lead left of Saturn, will rise at 4 a.m. It’s now down to 120 million miles (193 million km) away, as the Earth slowly overtakes it at the rate of about 5 million miles (8 million km) a week. Mars will be closest to us in October at about 39 million miles (62 million km). That’s not as close as it was 2 years ago, but closer than it will get for the next 15 years.

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

Addendum

Venus in the west-northwest at 10 p.m. tonight, April 22, 2020. Click on the image to enlarge. Created using Stellarium.

The Morning planets and the southern summer stars at 6 a.m. tomorrow April 23, 2020. Click on the image to enlarge. Created using Stellarium.

The planets as seen in a telescope with the same magnification. Venus in the evening and Jupiter and Saturn in the morning on the night of April 22/23, 2020. Apparent diameters: Venus, 34.36″; Jupiter, 39.72″; Saturn, 16.73″, rings, 38.96″. Mars at 7.28″ won’t be added until it reaches 10″. The ” symbol means seconds of arc (1/3600th of a degree.) 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 April 22, 2020. The night ends on the left with sunrise on the 23rd. The closeness of Jupiter and Saturn in the morning sky unfortunately overlays planets and labels. Click on the image to enlarge. Created using my LookingUp program.