This is Ephemeris for Christmas Eve, Wednesday, December 24th. Today the Sun will be up for 8 hours and 48 minutes, setting at 5:06, and it will rise tomorrow at 8:18. The Moon, 3 days before first quarter, will set at 9:51 this evening.
Let’s take our weekly look at the whereabouts of the naked-eye planets. Saturn is the brightest star-like object in the southwestern sky as soon as it gets dark. In a telescope Saturn sports a very thin ring, eight tenths of a degree from being edge on and slowly opening. Jupiter will rise at 6:26 PM in the east-northeast, below Castor and Pollux, the bright stars of Gemini. The giant planet is slowly moving westward with its retrograde motion. Jupiter’s 4 brightest moons can be seen even in binoculars, and shift position night to night. In the morning sky, only Jupiter can be seen, descending in the western sky. It will leave the morning sky, officially on January 10th, as it reaches opposition to the Sun.
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; EST, UT – 5 hours) unless stated otherwise. Times will be different for other locations.
Addendum
Jupiter, Saturn and the waxing crescent Moon along with the zodiacal constellations, and the path of the Sun (ecliptic) in orange, in this panorama at 8 PM tonight, December 24, 2025. Created using Stellarium.
The Moon three days before first quarter as seen in the tonight, December 24, 2025. A view visible in small telescopes showing an image with and without selected features labeled. Created using Stellarium, LibreOffice Draw, and GIMP.
Jupiter is the only visible morning planet, and soon it too will leave, as it is sinking in the west with the few remaining winter stars at 7 AM tomorrow, December 25, 2025. Created using Stellarium.
Telescopic Saturn, and Jupiter (north up) as they would be seen in a small telescope with the same magnification at 8 PM tonight, December 24, 2025. Saturn will be 17.3″ in diameter, but its rings, being nearly edge on, may show up brighter than seen here, and extend to 40.3″. They are tilted 0.8° from being edge on. Jupiter will be 45.2″ in diameter. There are some events with Jupiter’s moons tonight. Europa is already transiting the face of the planet, and will leave at 10:05 PM. It’s shadow, falling on the planet is preceding it, though not shown, and will leave at 9:15 PM. The (”) symbol means seconds of arc, or 1/3600th of a degree. Created using Cartes du Ciel (Sky Charts), LibreOffice Draw and GIMP.
A note about transits of Jovian moons: A transiting moon is extremely difficult to pick up, however the moon’s shadow falling on the planet is much more easily spotted.
The naked-eye planets and the Moon at sunset and sunrise on a single night, starting with sunset on the right on December 24th, 2025. The night ends on the left with sunrise on the 25th. 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, December 24th and 25th, 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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