This is Ephemeris for Ash Wednesday, February 18th. Today the Sun will be up for 10 hours and 37 minutes, setting at 6:15, and it will rise tomorrow at 7:36. The Moon, 1 day past new, will set at 7:52 this evening.
Let’s take our weekly look at the whereabouts of the naked-eye planets. After sunset Venus may show up very low in the West probably before 7:00 PM. Above Venus, tonight, will be the 1 1/2 day old Moon and above it and very close, the planet Mercury making a rare appearance in our evening sky. At 8 PM Saturn remains low in the west southwestern sky, and it will set before 9 PM. In a telescope Saturn sports a very thin ring, 3.1 degrees from being edge on and is slowly opening. Jupiter is the brilliant star-like object more than halfway up in the east-southeastern sky. It’s the brightest star-like object in the sky. It is still moving to the west, but is slowing down and will stop and reverse its course 20 days now.
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
Saturn appears with Mercury, the Moon and maybe even Venus in the west-southwestern sky at 7 PM tonight February 18, 2026, or 45 minutes after sunset. The planet Mercury will most likely be dimmer than it appears here. It is always hard to spot in the twilight, though being just above the Moon will help tonight. Start looking for it around 6:45 PM or about a half hour after sunset. Created using Stellarium.
A closeup of Mercury and the day and a half old Moon. Created using Stellarium.
Jupiter as it appears tonight, February 18, 2026, in its orientation at 9:00 PM moving against the stars of Gemini. Also shown is its track from last July to next July, and the retrograde loop that is currently making, slowly moving to the West which it will do for the next 20 days until it stops (becomes stationary) on March 10th. Then it will resume its eastward motion. The inset shows a magnified view of the west end of the retrograde loop. Created using Stellarium, LibreOffice Draw and GIMP.
Telescopic Saturn, and Jupiter (north up) as they would be seen in a small telescope with the same magnification at 9 PM tonight, February 18, 2026. Saturn will be 16.1″ in diameter, but its rings, being nearly edge on, may show up brighter than seen here, and extend to 37.4″. They are tilted 3.1° from being edge on. Jupiter will be 44.0″ in diameter. Earlier in the evening Mercury may be glimpsed just a bove the day and a half old Moon. Its too small to be represented here, because it’s only 7.0″ in diameter and is 52.8% illuminated. If you’re lucky enough to spot Venus, it’s 10″ in diameter and 98.4% illuminated. 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 February 18th, 2026. The night ends on the left with sunrise on the 19th. The Moon and Mercury labels overlap near the sunset sun. 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, February 18th and 19th, 2026. 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 