This is Ephemeris for Wednesday, July 2nd. Today the Sun will be up for 15 hours and 29 minutes, setting at 9:31, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:02. The Moon, at first quarter today, will set at 1:18 tomorrow morning.
Let’s take our weekly look at the whereabouts of the naked-eye planets. The Red Planet Mars, will be seen to the upper left of the bright star Regulus in the constellation Leo the lion. Both are seen in the western sky by 10:30 PM at least. At that time Mercury might be spotted low on the west-northwestern Lake Michigan horizon. This is not a favorable appearance of Mercury. Jupiter passed conjunction with the Sun last week, but it will be nearly a month before it will appear in our morning sky. Venus will rise at 3:28 AM in the east northeast, and by 5 AM will be seen low in the east, as the Morning Star. By then Saturn will be in the southeast, having risen nearly 2½ hours earlier.
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
Mars and Regulus this evening with Mercury and the Moon in the western sky near 10:30 PM tonight, July 2, 2025. Mercury is seen here, but will probably be invisible from my latitude as being too low in the sky. The farther south one goes, at least to the equator, the higher Mercury will appear. Mercury’s evening appearances in summer and fall are poor ones for us mortherners. Created using Stellarium.
The Moon tonight, July 2, 2025. A view visible in small telescopes showing an image with and without selected features labeled. Created using Stellarium, LibreOffice Draw, and GIMP.
Venus and Saturn at 5 AM tomorrow morning, July 3rd, 2025, in the east-southeastern sky. Created using Stellarium.
Telescopic Saturn and Venus (north up) as they would be seen in a small telescope with the same magnification. On the evening of July 2, 2025, Mercury will have an apparent diameter of 7.9″ and be 42.9% illuminated. Mars will be 4.8″ in diameter. Both are too small to be shown here. My lower size limit is 10″. On the morning of the 3rd, Saturn will be 17.8″ in diameter, but its rings, being nearly edge on, should show up brighter than seen here., and extend to 41.4″. They are tilted 3.6° from being edge on. Venus’ apparent diameter will be 17.5″, and be 64.7% illuminated. The ” means seconds of arc, or 1/3600th of a degree. Created using Cartes du Ciel (Sky Charts), LibreOffice Draw and GIMP.
The naked-eye planets and the Moon at sunset and sunrise on a single night, starting with sunset on the right on July 2, 2025. The night ends on the left with sunrise on the 3rd. 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, July 2nd and 3rd, 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.
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