Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

This is Bob Moler with Ephemeris for Thursday, October 12th. Today the Sun will be up for 11 hours and 9 minutes, setting at 7:03, and it will rise tomorrow at 7:55. The Moon, 2 days before new, will rise at 6:39 tomorrow morning.

There will be a partial solar eclipse Saturday for most of the unit for the 48 Continental United States. It will be maximum on a line from Oregon through Texas. It’s called an annular eclipse. At its maximum an annular eclipse is an eclipse where the Moon is too far away to completely cover the face of the Sun so at maximum it leaves a ring of the Sun. Some call it a Ring of Fire. We’re well north of that line so we will see a partial eclipse where about 35% of the Sun will be covered by the Moon at its peak, although the Moon will encroach about 45% of the diameter of the Sun. For northern Michigan the eclipse will start at about 11:42 am, maximum eclipse is about 1 pm and the eclipse will end at 2:18 pm. I’ll talk about eclipse viewing safety tomorrow.

The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EDT, UT –4 hours). They may be different for your location.

Addendum