This is Ephemeris for Wednesday, July 23rd. Today the Sun will be up for 14 hours and 58 minutes, setting at 9:18, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:20. The Moon, 1 day before new, will rise at 5:43 tomorrow morning.
Let’s take our weekly look at the whereabouts of the naked-eye planets. The Red Planet Mars, will be seen low in the western sky at 10:30 PM. Mars is moving toward Spica, higher in the southwest. It will pass above Spica on September 12th. Mars moves much faster against the background stars than the more distant Jupiter and Saturn. Speaking of Saturn, it now rises just before midnight at just about due east, and by 5:30 AM will be high in the south. Venus will rise at 3:25 AM in the east-northeast and will be higher in that general direction by 5:30. Jupiter will be below and left of it then. That they will appear among the winter stars will become more apparent in the next few weeks.
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 Spica this evening in the western sky near 10:30 PM tonight, July 23, 2025. Created using Stellarium.
Venus, Saturn and Jupiter with some bright stars at 5:30 AM tomorrow morning, July 24th, 2025, looking from northeast to south-south Created using Stellarium.
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 23, 2025, Mars will be 4.5″ in diameter, too small to be shown here. My lower size limit is 10″. On the morning of the 24th, Saturn will be 18.4″ in diameter, but its rings, even being nearly edge on, should show up brighter than seen here., and extend to 42.9″. They are tilted 3.5° from being edge on. Venus’ apparent diameter will be 15.0″, and be 72.6% illuminated. Jupiter will be 32.4″ 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 23, 2025. The night ends on the left with sunrise on the 24th. 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 23rd and 24th, 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 