This is Ephemeris for Wednesday, May 28th. Today the Sun will be up for 15 hours and 15 minutes, setting at 9:18, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:01. The Moon, 2 days past new, will set at 11:50 this evening.
Let’s take our weekly look at the whereabouts of the naked-eye planets. At 10 PM this evening two naked eye planets will be out. Jupiter, is now low in the west-northwestern sky Underneath the waxing crescent Moon. The fading Mars, with its distinctive reddish hue, is in the west-southwest, at that time. It’s slowly approaching the bright star Regulus in Leo the lion, which it will pass on June 16th. By 5 AM Venus will be seen very low in the east, as the Morning Star, with Saturn to the right and a bit above it. Venus will require a low eastern horizon then. But it will rise and be visible until close to 5:45. For those with telescopes, Saturn’s rings are now opening up again, and will for the next 7 years.
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
The evening planets Jupiter and Mars seen with the fading stars of winter in bright twilight at 10 PM, tonight May 28th, 2025. It looks like the last chance to see Jupiter in the evening sky until late fall. Created using Stellarium and GIMP.
Venus and Saturn at 5 AM tomorrow morning, May 29th, 2025, low in the east. Created using Stellarium.
Telescopic Jupiter, Saturn and Venus (north up) as they would be seen in a small telescope with the same magnification. Jupiter is shown for tonight, 10 PM, May 21, 2025. Its apparent diameter is 32.4″, though its moons will be probably washed out by the bright twilight. Mars is 5.6″ in diameter, too small to be shown here. My lower size limit is 10″. Saturn is shown on the morning of the 29, it is 16.8″ in diameter, but its rings, being nearly edge on should show up brighter than seen here., and extend to 39.0″. They are 3.1° from being edge on. Venus’ apparent diameter is 24.6″, and is 47.6% iluminated. Planetary surface detail is more subtle than shown here. The ” means seconds of arc, or 1/3600th of a degree. 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 May 28, 2025. The night ends on the left with sunrise on the 29th. 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, May 28th and 29th, 2025. Some of the columns are self-explanatory, others are 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 