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Ephemeris: 01/10/2024 – Where have the naked-eye planets wandered off to this week?

January 10, 2024 Comments off

This is Ephemeris for Wednesday, January 10th. Today the Sun will be up for 9 hours and 2 minutes, setting at 5:21, and it will rise tomorrow at 8:18. The Moon, 1 day before new, will rise at 8:59 tomorrow morning.

Let’s find out where the naked-eye planets have wandered off to this week. Four of those five planets are now visible. Mars will rise too close to sunrise to be seen, however. Saturn and Jupiter are the evening planets. Saturn can be seen moving from low in the southwest to setting in the west-southwest at 9:06 pm. Jupiter will be moving from high in the south to the west by midnight and will set at 2:31 am. Venus, the brilliant morning star, will rise in the east-southeast at 5:44 am, and be a brilliant beacon in the morning, shining in the southeast before the bright morning twilight claims it around 8 am. Mercury will also be visible below and left of Venus, and should be visible by 7:30 am.

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

Jupiter and Saturn as they might appear tonight at 7:00 PM January 10th, 2024. Click on or tap on the image to enlarge it . Created using Stellarium.
Venus and Mercury as they might appear at 7:30 tomorrow morning January 11th, 2024. The bright star to the right of Venus is the reddish star Antares in Scorpius, one of the first of the southern summer stars to appear in the morning sky. Click or tap on the image to enlarge it. Created using Stellarium.
Telescopic Saturn, Jupiter and Venus (north up) as they would be seen in a small telescope, with the same magnification. At 7 pm January 10, 2024, for Saturn and Jupiter, and 7:30 am on the 4th, for Venus. Apparent diameters: Saturn 15.95″, its rings 37.16″; Jupiter 42.56″; and Venus 13.39″, 80.8% illuminated. Mercury appears too small to be shown here, but its apparent diameter is 6.78″ and is 61.2% illuminated. The ” symbol means seconds of arc (1/3600th of a degree). Created using Cartes du Ciel (Sky Charts) and GIMP.
The naked-eye planets and the Moon at sunset and sunrise on a single night, starting with sunset on the right on January 10, 2024. The night ends on the left with sunrise on the 11th. Click or tap on the image to enlarge it. Created using my LookingUp app and GIMP.

Categories: Ephemeris Program, Naked-eye planets, Observing, Planets Tags: , , , ,