This is Ephemeris for New Year’s Day, Wednesday, January 1st, 2025. The Sun will rise at 8:20. It’ll be up for 8 hours and 53 minutes, setting at 5:13. The Moon, 2 days past new, will set at 7:02 this evening.
Let’s take our weekly look at the whereabouts of the naked-eye planets. Venus can be spotted in the south-southwestern sky by 5:45 PM, about 30 minutes after sunset, and will also be above and left of the thin crescent Moon. Venus will set at 9:10 PM. Saturn will be in the south-southwestern sky at 6 PM, above and left of Venus, which will be seen to cross paths with it on the 18th of this month. Jupiter is low in the east, about the same time Venus is first spotted. It will be a good object for the small telescope. Mars, rises tonight at 6:31. Mars is still considered a morning planet since it is still up at sunrise. But that will end on the 15th of this month, when Mars reaches opposition from the Sun.
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.
Happy New Year! I do really hope it will be happy…
Addendum
This is a 7 PM planet panorama. Venus and Saturn are in the southwest, and Jupiter is in the east. Mars is just rising in the east-northeast. Click or tap on the image to enlarge it. Created using Stellarium.
The waxing two day old Moon with earthshine on its night side. Created using Stellarium.
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 7 PM, January 1, 2025. Apparent diameters: Venus 22.4″, 55% illuminated; Saturn 16.6″, its rings 38.6″, 4.3 degrees from edge on (closing); Jupiter 47.0″; Mars, 14.3″. 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 January 1, 2025. The night ends on the left with sunrise on the 2nd. 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, January 1 and 2, 2025. 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.
Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog 