Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

This is Bob Moler with Ephemeris for Wednesday, February 24th. Today the Sun will be up for 10 hours and 55 minutes, setting at 6:24, and it will rise tomorrow at 7:26. The Moon, 3 days before full, will set at 6:56 tomorrow morning.

Let’s search for the naked-eye planets for this week. Unfortunately the only one you’ll find is Mars. The other four are hanging out in the direction of the Sun and won’t be seen for a week or two. They’ll be first seen low in the morning sky. Mars can be found high in the west-southwest and below the Pleiades at 8 pm tonight. Mars is moving rapidly eastward. It just entered the constellation of Taurus the bull, which is a lot wider than Aries, astronomically*, and will set at 1:26 am. Of the outer planets Mars is the fastest, being the nearest to the Sun, and to the Earth, so unlike Jupiter, Saturn and the stars which rise and set about four minutes earlier each night, Mars sets about a minute earlier each night now.

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

* Astrologically the all the constellations or signs of the zodiac are 30 degrees wide. According to the International Astronomical Union (IAU) Aries is 25 degrees wide along the ecliptic, while Taurus is 37 degrees wide as measured using the Stellarium planetarium program. I do astronomy on Ephemeris, and consider astrology astronomy’s illegitimate parent.

Addendum

Mars finder animation with 3 layers: Unannotated chart, Labels and constellation lines added, and boundaries added. Created using Stellarium and GIMP.

The gibbous Moon as it might be seen in binoculars this evening at 8 pm tonight, February 24, 2021. Created using Stellarium.

Planets and the Moon at sunset and sunrise of a single night starting with sunset on the right on February 24, 2021. The night ends on the left with sunrise on the 25th. There is a planet traffic jam in the morning and the labels for Jupiter and Mercury overlap. Unfortunately these planets rise too soon before the Sun to be seen for us up north. It is a great sight for Southern Hemisphere observers. Click on the image to enlarge. Created using my LookingUp program.