This is Ephemeris for Christmas Day, Wednesday, December 25th. Today the Sun will be up for 8 hours and 48 minutes, setting at 5:07, and it will rise tomorrow at 8:19. The Moon, 3 days past last quarter, will rise at 4:16 tomorrow morning.
Let’s take our weekly look at the whereabouts of the naked-eye planets. Venus can be spotted in the south-southwestern sky by 5:30 PM, about 30 minutes after sunset. It will set at 8:41 PM. Saturn will be in the south at 6 PM, way above the bright star Fomalhaut. Jupiter is low in the east-northeast, about the same time Venus is first spotted. It will be a good object for the small telescope about an hour later. Mars, rises tonight at 7:44, It will appear above the Moon in the evening. Mars is still considered a morning planet since it is still up at sunrise. By 6:00 AM tomorrow Jupiter will be low in the west-northwest, to the right of the setting Orion, while reddish Mars will be high in the west-southwest.
The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EST, UT – 5 hours). Times will be different for other locations.
Addendum
This is a 6 PM planet panorama. Venus is in the southwest, Saturn is in the south, and Jupiter is rising in the east. Mars will rise shortly. Click or tap on the image to enlarge it. Created using Stellarium.
Looking eastward at 9:00 PM at Jupiter and Mars among the rising winter constellations. Created using Stellarium.
The Moon as it might appear through a small telescope tomorrow morning, December 26, 2024. Selected features are labeled. Created using Stellarium, LibreOffice draw, and GIMP.
Telescopic Venus, Saturn, Jupiter and Mars (north up) as they would be seen in a small telescope with the same magnification. All the planets are shown for tonight, Jupiter specifically for 8 PM, December 25, 2024. Apparent diameters: Venus 21.0″, 58.1% illuminated; Saturn 16.7″, its rings 39.0″, 4.5 degrees from edge on (closing); Jupiter 47.5″; Mars, 13.9″. Saturn’s rings are actually much brighter than depicted here. Planetary surface detail is more subtle than shown here. The ” means seconds of arc, or 1/3600th of a degree. Click or tap on the image to enlarge it. 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 December 25, 2024. The night ends on the left with sunrise on the 26th. 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, December 25 and 26, 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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