This is Ephemeris for Wednesday, May 20th. Today the Sun will be up for 15 hours exactly, setting at 9:09, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:08. The Moon, 3 days before first quarter, will set at 1:41 tomorrow morning.
Let’s take our weekly look at the whereabouts of the naked-eye planets. By 9:30 PM tonight, about 20 minutes after sunset, Venus may be seen in the western sky. A telescope will show a very tiny disc on Venus, because it is still pretty much beyond the Sun, 124 million miles (199 million kilometers) away from us. Over the next 5 months it will be moving closer to us and becoming much larger. Jupiter is the second-brightest star-like object in the western sky seen before 10 PM. It is below and right of the Moon tonight. Venus will set at 11:53 PM, while Jupiter will hold out until 1:01 AM. Saturn may be first glimpsed just after it rises in the east at 4:18 AM, before morning twilight overwhelms it later on.
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
Jupiter, Venus and the Moon, itself at twice actual size, at 10 PM tonight, May 20, 2026. Jupiter and Venus are appearing to approach each other. They will be in conjunction on the evening of June 8th. Created using Stellarium.
The Moon, 4 days after new, as seen at 10 PM tonight, May 20, 2026. A view visible in small telescopes showing an image with and without selected features labeled. Created using Stellarium, LibreOffice Draw, and GIMP.
Saturn and Mars at 5:15 AM May 21, 2026. Mars may not actually be visible, being too low and faint. Created using Stellarium.
Telescopic Venus and Jupiter at 10 PM on the 20th, and Saturn at 5:15 AM on the 21st (north up), as they would be seen in a small telescope with the same magnification. Venus’ apparent diameter will be 13.0″, and be 82.8% illuminated. It’s on the far side of the Sun. Jupiter will be 33.9″ in diameter, with its moons shown for the time listed. Saturn will be 16.4″ in diameter, and its rings extend to 38.3″ and are tilted 8º to our view. Mars will appear 4.2″ in diameter. 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 at sunset and sunrise on a single night, starting with sunset on the right on May 20, 2026. The night ends on the left with sunrise on the 21st. 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, May 20 and 21st, 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 