This is Ephemeris for Wednesday, July 31st. Today the Sun will be up for 14 hours and 40 minutes, setting at 9:09, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:29. The Moon, halfway from last quarter to new, will rise at 3:01 tomorrow morning.
Let’s take our weekly look at the whereabouts of the naked-eye planets. Venus may still be too close to the direction of the Sun to be easily seen, it will set at 9:56 pm in the west-northwest. The best time to spot it will start about 9:30 pm or so, looking over a Lake Michigan horizon. Mercury now is too low and faint to be seen at that time. The rest of the planets are in the morning sky. By 5:30 tomorrow morning, or an hour before sunrise, Saturn will be in the south-southwest, Mars and Jupiter will make a small triangle with the bright star Aldebaran in the east with Mars on top and Jupiter on the left. Below and left of Jupiter will be the crescent Moon. Saturn may look disappointing in telescopes this year since rings are nearly edge on and appear almost as a line through the planet. Saturn will rise at 10:45 pm, Mars will rise at 1:56 am, and finally Jupiter at 2:20 am.
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
Venus in evening twilight about 20 minutes after sunset or 9:30 PM. Created using Stellarium.
At 5:30 AM tomorrow morning, August 1st, 2024, the planets Jupiter and Mars are seen along with the bright stars of winter rising in the east. Over in the south-southeast is Saturn. I think starting next week I’ll report where Saturn appears in the evening sky, since it will be rising early enough and get high enough so it can be spotted and easily seen in telescopes. Created using Stellarum.
The telescopic view of the three days before new Moon for 5:30 AM tomorrow, August 1st 2024. Created using Stellarium , Libreoffice Draw, and GIMP.
Telescopic Saturn and Jupiter (north up) as they would be seen in a small telescope with the same magnification at 5:30 AM August 1st 2024. Apparent diameters: Saturn 18.7″, its rings 43.7″, 2.5 degrees from edge on (opening up a bit); Mars, too small to be represented here, is 5.9″; Jupiter 35.5″. Note the ” means seconds of arc, or 1/3600th of a degree. Created using Cartes du Ciel (Sky Charts).
The naked-eye planets and the Moon at sunset and sunrise on a single night, starting with sunset on the right on July 31, 2023. The night ends on the left with sunrise on August 1st. Click or tap on the image to enlarge it. Created using my LookingUp app and GIMP.
This is a low precision ephemeris of the Sun Moon and naked eye planet positions for today and tomorrow, July 31st and August 1st 2024. Some of the columns are self-explanatory, others not. The transit column is the time that the body crosses the meridian and is due south. Elong, for elongation, is the angle between the Sun and that body. RA is right ascension, which is the object’s east-west position on the celestial sphere. Dec is declination which is the north-south position of the object on the celestial sphere. R is the distance of that object from the Sun in astronomical units. An astronomical unit is about 93 million miles or 150 million kilometers. And Delta is the distance of that object from the Earth, also in astronomical units. I omit the ‘m’ in am and pm for compactness. The data was generated using my LookingUp for DOS app and displayed by my Ephemeris Helper app.
Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog 