Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

This is Ephemeris for Friday, December 29th. Today the Sun will be up for 8 hours and 50 minutes, setting at 5:10, and it will rise tomorrow at 8:19. The Moon, 3 days past full, will rise at 7:43 this evening.

The year 2024 should give us two great events. The first is a total solar eclipse whose path will pass close to Michigan. It actually clip it by a few miles in the southeast corner of our state on April 8th. The eclipse will be even better here than the August 21st, 2017 eclipse by several percent. About 87% of the Sun will be covered by the Moon in Northern Michigan. In the US the path of totality will run from Texas to Maine, and will pass over the cities of Indianapolis and Cleveland. Then in October a new comet will be in our evening sky, and it might be quite bright. It’s Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS. If, and it’s a big IF, its brightness tracks as it has been since its discovery, nearly a year ago, it will rival the average first magnitude star, like Betelgeuse by October, and be easily visible in the west after sunset by mid-month. It won’t be as bright as Comet Hale-Bopp, for those old enough to have seen it in 1997, but hopefully brighter than Comet NEOWISE in the summer of 2020.

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