Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

This is Bob Moler with Ephemeris for Friday, May 30th, the last program of Ephemeris’ 50th orbit of the Sun. Today the Sun will be up for 15 hours and 18 minutes, setting at 9:19, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:00. The Moon, 3 days before first quarter, will set at 1:17 tomorrow morning.

Let’s take a look at June skies. There will be a lot of sunshine this month. The daylight hours will increase a bit from 15 hours and 21 minutes today to 15 hours and 34 minutes on the 21st, retreating back to 15 hours 31 minutes at month’s end. At this time of the year the sunset times for Ludington, Interlochen, Petoskey and Mackinaw City are very nearly the same. However, the sunrise times are at their most divergent. With Ludington’s sunrise being 14 minutes later than Mackinaw City’s. The altitude of the Sun above the southern horizon at local noon (1:44 pm in Interlochen) on the solstice, June 20th will be 68 and three-quarters degrees. Summer will start at 10:42 PM that night.

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

June Evening Star Chart

The planets and stars are plotted for the 15th at 11 p.m. EDT in the evening and 4 a.m. for the morning chart. These are the chart times. Note that Interlochen/Traverse City is located approximately 45 minutes behind our time meridian, West 75° longitude. (An hour 45 minutes behind our daylight saving time meridian during EDT). To duplicate the star positions on a planisphere you may have to set it to 1 hour 45 minutes earlier than the current time.
Note, the chart times of 11 p.m. and 4 a.m. are for the 15th. For each week before the 15th, add ½ hour (28 minutes if you’re picky). For each week after the 15th, subtract ½ hour, or 28 minutes. The planet positions are updated each Wednesday on this blog. For planet positions on dates other than the 15th, check the Wednesday planet posts on this blog for weekly positions.

June Morning Star Chart

For a list of constellation names to go with the abbreviations, click here.

• Pointer stars at the front of the bowl of the Big Dipper point to Polaris, the North Star.
• Leaky dipper drips on Leo
• Follow the arc of the handle of the Big Dipper to the star Arcturus, and
• Extend like a spike to Spica,

Twilight Limits, Nautical and Astronomical

The twilight calendar was generated using Cartes du Ciel (Sky Charts), with some modifications. See my blog post: Twilight Zone for the definitions of the different periods of twilight here: https://bobmoler.wordpress.com/2018/09/27/.

NASA Calendar of Planetary Events

   Date       Time    Event 
Jun  1  Su            Venus: 45.9° W
     1  Su   5:49 AM  Moon-Mars: 1.5° S
     1  Su   9:30 PM  Moon-Regulus: 1.9° S
     2  Mo  11:41 PM  First Quarter
     3  Tu   9:33 PM  Moon Descending Node
     6  Fr  10:15 AM  Moon-Spica: 0.6° N
     7  Sa   6:42 AM  Moon Apogee: 405600 km
    10  Tu   6:25 AM  Moon-Antares: 0.3° N
    11  We   3:44 AM  Full Moon
    11  We   7:54 PM  Moon South Dec.: 28.4° S
    16  Mo  10:05 PM  Mars-Regulus: 0.7° N
    18  We   5:41 AM  Moon Ascending Node
    18  We   3:19 PM  Last Quarter
    18  We  11:47 PM  Moon-Saturn: 3.4° S
    20  Fr  10:42 PM  Summer Solstice
    21  Sa   3:51 PM  Mercury-Pollux: 5° S
    22  Su  10:59 PM  Moon-Pleiades: 0.6° S
    23  Mo  12:43 AM  Moon Perigee: 363200 km
    24  Tu  11:06 AM  Jupiter Conjunction
    24  Tu   9:43 PM  Moon North Dec.: 28.4° N
    25  We   6:31 AM  New Moon
    27  Fr   2:02 AM  Moon-Mercury: 2.9° S
    27  Fr   1:42 PM  Moon-Beehive: 2.1° S
    29  Su   6:26 AM  Moon-Regulus: 1.6° S
    29  Su   9:05 PM  Moon-Mars: 0.2° S
    30  Mo  11:46 PM  Moon Descending Node

Sky Events Calendar by Fred Espenak and Sumit Dutta (NASA’s GSFC),
http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SKYCAL/SKYCAL.html.

Sun and Moon Rising and Setting Events

LU       Ephemeris of Sky Events for Interlochen/Traverse City, MI
June, 2025    Local time zone: EDT
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| DATE |  SUN     SUN  DAYLIGHT|   TWILIGHT*    |MOON  RISE OR    ILLUM |
|      |  RISE    SET    HOURS |  END    START  |PHASE SET** TIME FRACTN|
+=======================================================================+
|Sun  1| 06:00a  09:21p  15:21 | 10:45p  04:37a |      Set  02:07a   38%|
|Mon  2| 05:59a  09:22p  15:22 | 10:46p  04:36a |F Qtr Set  02:25a   48%|
|Tue  3| 05:59a  09:23p  15:23 | 10:47p  04:35a |      Set  02:41a   58%|
|Wed  4| 05:58a  09:23p  15:25 | 10:48p  04:34a |      Set  02:57a   68%|
|Thu  5| 05:58a  09:24p  15:26 | 10:49p  04:34a |      Set  03:14a   76%|
|Fri  6| 05:58a  09:25p  15:27 | 10:50p  04:33a |      Set  03:32a   84%|
|Sat  7| 05:57a  09:26p  15:28 | 10:51p  04:33a |      Set  03:53a   90%|
+------+-----------------------+----------------+-----------------------+
|Sun  8| 05:57a  09:26p  15:29 | 10:51p  04:32a |      Set  04:20a   95%|
|Mon  9| 05:57a  09:27p  15:30 | 10:52p  04:32a |      Set  04:53a   98%|
|Tue 10| 05:57a  09:27p  15:30 | 10:53p  04:31a |      Set  05:36a  100%|
|Wed 11| 05:56a  09:28p  15:31 | 10:54p  04:31a |Full  Rise 10:31p   99%|
|Thu 12| 05:56a  09:29p  15:32 | 10:54p  04:31a |      Rise 11:20p   97%|
|Fri 13| 05:56a  09:29p  15:32 | 10:55p  04:30a |      Rise 11:59p   93%|
|Sat 14| 05:56a  09:29p  15:33 | 10:55p  04:30a |      Rise 12:30a   87%|
+------+-----------------------+----------------+-----------------------+
|Sun 15| 05:56a  09:30p  15:33 | 10:56p  04:30a |      Rise 12:55a   79%|
|Mon 16| 05:56a  09:30p  15:34 | 10:56p  04:30a |      Rise 01:17a   69%|
|Tue 17| 05:56a  09:31p  15:34 | 10:57p  04:30a |      Rise 01:36a   59%|
|Wed 18| 05:56a  09:31p  15:34 | 10:57p  04:30a |L Qtr Rise 01:55a   48%|
|Thu 19| 05:56a  09:31p  15:34 | 10:58p  04:30a |      Rise 02:15a   37%|
|Fri 20| 05:57a  09:31p  15:34 | 10:58p  04:30a |      Rise 02:38a   26%|
|Sat 21| 05:57a  09:32p  15:34 | 10:58p  04:30a |      Rise 03:07a   16%|
+------+-----------------------+----------------+-----------------------+
|Sun 22| 05:57a  09:32p  15:34 | 10:58p  04:31a |      Rise 03:44a    9%|
|Mon 23| 05:57a  09:32p  15:34 | 10:58p  04:31a |      Rise 04:33a    3%|
|Tue 24| 05:58a  09:32p  15:34 | 10:58p  04:31a |      Rise 05:36a    0%|
|Wed 25| 05:58a  09:32p  15:34 | 10:58p  04:32a |New   Set  10:28p    1%|
|Thu 26| 05:58a  09:32p  15:33 | 10:58p  04:32a |      Set  11:12p    3%|
|Fri 27| 05:59a  09:32p  15:33 | 10:58p  04:33a |      Set  11:44p    8%|
|Sat 28| 05:59a  09:32p  15:32 | 10:58p  04:33a |      Set  12:08a   15%|
+------+-----------------------+----------------+-----------------------+
|Sun 29| 06:00a  09:32p  15:32 | 10:57p  04:34a |      Set  12:28a   24%|
|Mon 30| 06:00a  09:32p  15:31 | 10:57p  04:35a |      Set  12:46a   33%|
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
* Nautical Twilight
** Moonrise or moonset, whichever occurs between sunset and sunrise

Generated using my LookingUp for DOS app.