This is Bob Moler with Ephemeris for Wednesday, November 12th. Today the Sun will be up for 9 hours and 41 minutes, setting at 5:17, and it will rise tomorrow at 7:37. The Moon, at last quarter today, will rise at 12:48 tomorrow morning.
Let’s take our weekly look at the whereabouts of the naked-eye planets. Saturn is the brightest star like object in the east southeastern sky as soon as it gets dark. In a telescope Saturn sports a very thin ring, 4/10ths of a degree from being edge on. Normally, I’d say that Saturn’s rings are easy to see in a telescope. Currently, the rings appear extremely thin and can be difficult to pick up. Jupiter will rise at 9:27 PM in the east-northeast. By 6:30 AM, it will appear high in the southwest, below the stars of Gemini, with Orion and the other bright stars of winter in the southwest. Venus, which will rise at 6:26 AM will be difficult to spot in the morning twilight.
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
Saturn in the south southeast with the nearby zodiacal constellations at 8 PM tonight, November 12, 2025. Created using Stellarium.
Venus will be visible very low in the east-southeast, and Jupiter will be high in the southwestern sky with the winter stars at 7 AM tomorrow morning, November 13, 2025. Created using Stellarium.
The Moon a day past last quarter as seen before sunrise tomorrow, November 13, 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, Jupiter and Venus (north up) as they would be seen in a small telescope with the same magnification. On the evening of the November 12, 2025, Saturn will be 18.6″ in diameter, but its rings, being nearly edge on, may show up brighter than seen here, and extend to 43.3″. They are tilted 0.4° from being edge on. At 6:00 AM on the morning of November 13, 2025, Jupiter will be 42.1″ in diameter. Venus’ apparent diameter will be 10.1″, and be 97.5% illuminated. It’s on the far side of the Sun. The (”) symbol 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 November 12th, 2025. The night ends on the left with sunrise on the 13th. 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, November 12th and 13th, 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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