This is Ephemeris for Wednesday, July 16th. Today the Sun will be up for 15 hours and 11 minutes, setting at 9:24, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:13. The Moon, 1 day before last quarter, will rise at 12:20 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 low in the western sky by 10:30 PM at least. Mars is moving away from Regulus, close to the horizon in the west-northwest toward Spica, higher in the southwest. Mars moves much faster against the background stars than the more distant Jupiter and Saturn. Jupiter is in the morning sky now very low in the east-northeast by 5:15 AM. Venus will rise at 3:23 AM in the east-northeast, and by 5 AM will be seen in the east, as the Morning Star. By then Saturn will be in the south-southeast, and below the last quarter Moon tomorrow morning.
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, Regulus and Spica this evening in the western sky near 10:30 PM tonight, July 16, 2025. Created using Stellarium.
Venus, Saturn and Jupiter with some bright stars at 5:15 AM tomorrow morning, July 17th, 2025, looking from northeast to south-southeast. Created using Stellarium.
The Moon tomorrow morning, July 17, 2025. A view visible in small telescopes showing an image with and without selected features labeled. Created using Stellarium, LibreOffice Draw, and GIMP.
Telescopic Saturn, Venus and Jupiter (north up) as they would be seen in a small telescope with the same magnification. On the evening of July 16, 2025, Mars will be 4.6″ in diameter, too small to be shown here. My lower size limit is 10″. On the morning of the 17th, Saturn will be 18.2″ in diameter, but its rings, even being nearly edge on, should show up brighter than seen here., and extend to 42.4″. They are tilted 3.6° from being edge on. Venus’ apparent diameter will be 15.8″, and be 70.1% illuminated. Jupiter will be 32.2″ in diameter, though its satellites may not be visible in the morning twilight. 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 16, 2025. The night ends on the left with sunrise on the 17th. 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 16th and 17th, 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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