Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

This is Ephemeris for Thursday, December 7th. Today the Sun will be up for 8 hours and 56 minutes, setting at 5:02, and it will rise tomorrow at 8:07. The Moon, 2 days past last quarter, will rise at 3:20 tomorrow morning.

The first constellation of winter is in the northeastern sky, called Auriga the charioteer. It’s to the upper left of Orion and directly left of Taurus. Auriga actually never really quite leaves us, because its brightest star, Capella is the star that never leaves us even in the heat of summer, Though for most of us it’s in the trees in the north. Auriga is a pentagon of stars with the Capella on top. Just right of Capella is a thin triangle of three faint stars, an asterism or informal constellation called the Kids, baby goats. Capella is their mother. For some reason they are all held by a charioteer, who is without his chariot. And from all the Hollywood Biblical epic movies I’ve seen, it takes two hands to drive a chariot, and it doesn’t have a rumble seat.

The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EST, UT –5 hours). They may be different for your location.

Addendum