Home > Constellations, Ephemeris Program, Observing > Ephemeris: 04/17/2025 – Finding the celestial crow

Ephemeris: 04/17/2025 – Finding the celestial crow

April 17, 2025

This is Ephemeris for Thursday, April 17th. Today the Sun will be up for 13 hours and 36 minutes, setting at 8:30, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:52. The Moon, 3 days before last quarter, will rise at 1:48 tomorrow morning.

The small constellation of Corvus the crow is located low in the south-southeast at 10:30 this evening. It’s made of 6 dim stars, but the pattern is a distinctive but distorted box with two stars at the upper left marking that corner, and another two marking the lower right corner. I usually don’t notice the extra star at these corners. To me the box stands out enough. It’s pretty much alone below Virgo and its bright star Spica, left an above it. I don’t see a crow here, but the box is distinctive in that no two sides are parallel. In the US we call the shape a trapezium. The British call it a trapezoid. Anyway it is a very interesting shape, at least to me.

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

A finder chart for Corvus the crow
A finder chart for Corvus the crow, showing first the stars only, the constellation lines for Leo, Virgo. and Corvus. And then Stellarium’s art for Corvus. I don’t really see a crow here, but the strange little box of four stars pretty much by themselves. Created using Stellariun and GIMP.

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