Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

This is Ephemeris for Friday, October 24th. Today the Sun will be up for 10 hours and 32 minutes, setting at 6:42, and it will rise tomorrow at 8:11. The Moon, 3 days past new, will set at 7:55 this evening.

This pair of objects are about as dim as one can see with the naked eye, but very rewarding for binoculars or small telescope, the Double Cluster. It’s a fine pair of star clusters just below the W of the constellation of Cassiopeia the queen located in the northeast.  Draw a vertical line down from the middle star of the W through the next star into the glow of the Milky Way.  The Double Cluster appears to the unaided eye as a brighter glow of the Milky Way.   This is confirmed with binoculars.  But in a small telescope it becomes two clusters of sparkling diamonds.  The clusters are much younger than the Sun, so their brightest stars are blue-white to our eyes.  The average distance of the two from Earth is 7,500 light 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.

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