Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

This is Bob Moler with Ephemeris for Tuesday, May 26th. Today the Sun will be up for 15 hours and 11 minutes, setting at 9:16, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:03. The Moon, 3 days past first quarter, will set at 3:48 tomorrow morning.

The space race with the Soviet Union started with the launch of Sputnik one in October 1957. The Soviets won the early milestones of the race, including less than two years after Sputnik 1, a flyby of Luna 3 around the moon, and taking the first photographs of the far side. Back then before CCDs, the best quality images from space were photographed onto film and then developed, then scanned on the satellite and the data is sent down to the earth. The images were rather crude and grainy. I was a senior in high school at the time and as interested in astronomy as I am today. We thought that the Far Side of the moon would be more of the same. The Far Side was completely different.

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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