Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

This is Bob Moler with Ephemeris for Monday, April 28th. Today the Sun will be up for 14 hours and 7 minutes, setting at 8:44, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:35. The Moon, 1 day past new, will set at 10:33 this evening.

At about 3:30 this afternoon Saturn and Venus will appear closest together. They will be up at that time. However, it’s during the daytime, so they will be invisible. By tomorrow morning Saturn will still be very close to Venus. The ringed planet will appear to the lower right of Venus by about half the width of a fist held in arm’s length. It will be very low in the sky at about 5:30 AM. Saturn is at its dimmest, because in a telescope, especially in twilight those rings would be missing. The rings are nearly edge on and the Sun happens to be shining on the other side of them, so the most that would be seen would be a very thin shadow of the rings across the center of the planet. In coming days Saturn will be moving away from the Sun, while Venus falls back to it.

The astronomical event times given in this blog are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (Lat 44.7° N, Long 85.7° W; EDT, UT – 4 hours) unless stated otherwise. Times will be different for other locations.

Addendum