This is Ephemeris for Wednesday, October 23rd. Today the Sun will be up for 10 hours and 34 minutes, setting at 6:44, and it will rise tomorrow at 8:10. The Moon, 1 day before last quarter, will rise at 11:50 this evening.
Let’s take our weekly look at the whereabouts of the naked-eye planets. Venus might be spotted in the West southwest low on the horizon at 7:15 PM, 29 minutes after sunset. It will set at 8:17. Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS will be west after 8:30 PM the end of astronomical twilight. It will set at 10:55 PM. Saturn will be in the southeast at 8 PM. Jupiter will rise at 9:11 PM this evening in the east northeast, and be a good object for the small telescope about an hour later. By 7:00 AM tomorrow Jupiter will be high in the southwest while Mars will be high in the south to the right of the Moon.
The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EDT, UT – 4 hours). Times will be different for other locations.
Addendum
Venus in evening twilight, approximately three quarters of an hour after sunset. For the Grand Traverse area of Michigan that would be about 7:30 PM tonight, October 23, 2024. Created using Stellarium.
Saturn, keeping company with Fomalhaut, the loneliest star in the sky in the siuth-southeastern sky at 9 PM. Created using Stellarium
Jupiter low in the east-northeast at 11 PM this evening. Created using Stellarium.
A finder chart for Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS for tonight and for the next 7 days. Created using Stellarium.
Jupiter, Mars and the Moon among the stars of winter seen at 7 AM tomorrow morning October 24, 2024. Created using Stellarium.
The Moon three hours past last quarter at 7 AM tomorrow morning, October 24, 2024. Selected features are labeled. Created using Stellarium, LibreOffice Draw, and GIMP.
Telescopic Venus, Saturn and Jupiter (north up) as they would be seen in a small telescope with the same magnification. All the planets shown are for tonight, the evening of October 23, 2024. Venus and Saturn are from the evening of the 25th 2024, Apparent diameters: Venus 13.6″, 79.2% illuminated; Saturn 18.6″, its rings 43.2″, 5.1 degrees from edge on (opening up a bit); Jupiter 45.2″; Mars, too small to be represented here, is 8.7″. Saturn’s rings are actually much brighter than depicted here. The ” means seconds of arc, or 1/3600th of a degree. Created using Cartes du Ciel (Sky Charts).
This is a low precision ephemeris of the Sun Moon and naked eye planet positions for today and tomorrow, October 23 and 24, 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 in hours and minutes. Dec is declination which is the north-south position of the object on the celestial sphere in degrees and minutes. 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 as a table by my Ephemeris Helper app.
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