Archive
05/16/11 – Ephemeris – Space Shuttle Endeavour to launch this morning
Monday, May 16th. Today the sun will be up for 14 hours and 50 minutes, setting at 9:04. The moon, 1 day before full, will set at 6:01 tomorrow morning. Tomorrow the sun will rise at 6:12
If all goes well the Space Shuttle Endeavor will lift off for the International Space Station at 8:56 this morning (EDT). The Endeavour, named for the for British Captain James Cook’s first vessel, which was sailed to Tahiti in in 1769 to observe the transit of Venus across the sun as part of an effort to determine the earth’s distance from the sun. Endeavour’s 25th and last flight will be the second to last flight of the Shuttle program. Gregory Johnson, mission pilot has family and a cottage in the area. The State Theater in downtown Traverse City will be open for a live feed of the launch starting at 8 a.m. if the launch is still a go. It will be hosted by NASA Solar System Ambassador Carolyn McKellar. This is a free event.
* Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Update
There were over 200 people, young and old that came to the theater for the event. It was very successful for such short notice of a relatively few days. Great work Carolyn and the volunteers and staff of the State Theater!
05/06/11 – Ephemeris – Saturns rings and Astronomy Day
Friday, May 6th. The sun rises at 6:26. It’ll be up for 14 hours and 26 minutes, setting at 8:52. The moon, 3 days past new, will set at 12:25 tomorrow morning.
This evening Northwestern Michigan College’s professor emeritus “Doc” H.G. Smith will present a program on Saturn’s rings at this evening’s meeting of the Grand Traverse Astronomical Society starting at 8 p.m. at the college’s Rogers Observatory. The Cassini spacecraft has given us some amazing images of those rings. Tomorrow evening starting at 9 p.m. the Society along with the NMC Astronomy Association will host a public viewing night at the observatory. On tap, if it’s clear, will be the planet Saturn and the crescent moon. Tomorrow is also Astronomy Day, and we’ll have some special exhibits and programs related to that. The observatory is located south of Traverse City on Birmley road between Garfield and Keystone roads.
* Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
05/05/11 – Ephmeris – The Eta Aquarid meteor shower
Thursday, May 5th. The sun rises at 6:27. It’ll be up for 14 hours and 24 minutes, setting at 8:51. The moon, 2 days past new, will set at 11:35 this evening.
The Eta Aquarid meteor shower is ramping up. The Eta Aquarids are caused by bits of Halley’s Comet, passing the earth’s orbit heading out from the sun. The Orionids of late October are debris of Halley’s comet passing the earth’s orbit heading in toward the sun. It’s the only comet I recollect caused two meteor showers. The Eta Aquarids are named for the star nearest the radiant of the meteor shower. The constellation of Aquarius has many shower radiants, which is why the shower is named for a star in Aquarius. The radiant rises shortly before 3:30 and astronomical twilight begins an hour later. There’s perhaps another half hour of visibility after that. The peak will occur tomorrow morning where up to 20 meteors per hour might be seen.
* Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Addendum
Eta Aquarid radiant
05/02/11 – Ephemeris – The “Planet Jam”
Monday, May 2nd. The sun rises at 6:31. It’ll be up for 14 hours and 16 minutes, setting at 8:48. The moon, 1 day before new, will rise at 6:21 tomorrow morning.
This month there will be a great gathering of planets in the morning sky, I call it a planet jam, kind of like a traffic jam. But these four planets are nowhere near each other, but just lined up to our sight. Unfortunately the group is too close to the sun and in the bright twilight to easily spot. The farther south you are the better the view. By south I mean south of the equator. Venus and Jupiter will be the easiest to spot, and by the end of the month Jupiter will break out of the group to become easily visible. Yesterday Jupiter passed Mars and within one day during the night of May 10th and 11th Venus will be in a tight group with Jupiter and Mercury. That morning might be the best time to spot Mercury. That’s half an hour before sunrise.
* Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Addendum
Planet Jam May 2011 animation
30 minutes before sunrise Eastern time is U.T. minus 4 hours. It’s perhaps a good thing I can’t ass the twilight glow. It’d drown out the planets.
04/29/11 – Ephemeris – May preview
Arbor Day, Friday, April 29th. The sun rises at 6:36. It’ll be up for 14 hours and 8 minutes, setting at 8:44. The moon, 4 days before new, will rise at 5:00 tomorrow morning.
Let’s look ahead at the month of May, the month when the promise of spring is finally fulfilled. Daylight hours in the Interlochen/Traverse City area will increase from 14 hours and 13 minutes Sunday to 15 hours 18 minutes on the 31st. The altitude, or angle, of the sun above the southern horizon at local noon will ascend from 60 degrees tomorrow to 67 degrees at month’s end. The altitude of the sun in the Straits area will be a degree lower than that. Local apparent noon this month, when the sun passes due south, will be about 1:38 p.m. This is the month of the Eta Aquarid meteor shower which will reach its peak next week. We’ll have dark skies for this very early morning meteor shower that’s related to Halley’s Comet.
* Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
04/18/11 – Ephemeris – Paschal Full Moon
Monday, April 18th. The sun rises at 6:53. It’ll be up for 13 hours and 37 minutes, setting at 8:30. The moon, 1 day past full, will rise at 9:49 this evening.
Last night our time the moon was full. It was the Paschal full moon, the first full moon of spring, or officially after March 21st. Western Christian churches celebrate Easter at the Sunday following. That would be the 24th, just one day short of the latest possible date of Easter. Eastern churches use a slightly different calendar and a different calculation method, but this year they celebrate Easter the same date. The calculation methods were chosen to make Easter roughly coincide with Jewish Passover. Christian churches use a calendar based on the earth’s orbit of the sun, or actually the seasons, while the Jewish calendar is based on the lunar cycle. That’s also pretty close this year because Passover begins tonight at sundown.
* Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
04/01/11 – Ephemeris – Astronomical events in the Grand Traverse area this weekend
April Fools Day, Friday, April 1st. The sun will rise at 7:23. It’ll be up for 12 hours and 45 minutes, setting at 8:09. The moon, 2 days before new, will rise at 6:34 tomorrow morning.
This evening Northwestern Michigan College’s own professor Jerry Dobek will present a talk about the book to be released at the end of this month at this evening’s meeting of the Grand Traverse Astronomical Society starting at 8 p.m. at the college’s Rogers Observatory.. Jerry is republishing A Photographic Atlas of Selected Regions of the Milky Way by E. E. Barnard from the best plates of the 1927 edition with additions and corrections to the original tables. Tomorrow evening starting at 9 p.m. the Society along with the NMC Astronomy Association will host a public viewing night at the observatory. This will be our last chance, if it’s clear to view the setting winter celestial wonders and we’ll get a preview of the rising ones of spring.
* Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
03/18/11 – Ephemeris – Spring is almost here
Ephemeris for Friday, March 18th. The sun will rise at 7:49. It’ll be up for 12 hours and 2 minutes, setting at 7:52. The moon, 1 day before full, will set at 7:16 tomorrow morning.
We are now two days and some hours from the beginning of spring. Spring will arrive at 7:21 p.m. Sunday evening. At that instant the sun will appear to cross the celestial equator, the projection of the earth’s equator on the sky, heading northward. This will give us six months of over 12 hours daylight, culminating on June 21st with over 15 and a half hours of daylight for our listening area. This is the spring or vernal equinox, or to be hemisphericaly correct, the March equinox, because those folks south of the equator will begin autumn. Earth’s seasons are due to the tilt of its axis by 23 and a half degrees. The earth’s axis is nearly fixed in space, but changes its orientation with respect to the sun during our yearly orbit.
* Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
03/17/11 – Ephemeris – MESSENGER spacecraft arrives at Mercury tonight
Ephemeris for St. Patrick’s Day, Thursday, March 17th. The sun will rise at 7:51. It’ll be up for 11 hours and 59 minutes, setting at 7:50. The moon, 2 days before full, will set at 6:48 tomorrow morning.
This evening the MESSENGER Spacecraft will fire its main engine for 15 minutes to put itself in orbit of the planet Mercury. The rocket firing will be at 8:45 this evening. Due to light time delays caused by Mercury being 97 million miles away, we won’t know if the rocket fired until 8:54. While its high gain antenna won’t be pointed at earth, we should get a signal from its omni- directional antenna. We did get a signal from Cassini with its orbital insertion of Saturn in 2004, and that was nearly a billion miles away. I don’t know if NASA TV’s covering the insertion live, but Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory is having a live webcast. Google “messenger mercury live orbital insertion” It was the first hit. I’ll have the address on the blog. http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/mer_orbit.html
* Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
03/16/11 – Ephemeris – The bright planets this week
Ephemeris for Wednesday, March 16th. The sun will rise at 7:53. It’ll be up for 11 hours and 56 minutes, setting at 7:49. The moon, 3 days before full, will set at 6:19 tomorrow morning.
It’s Wednesday and time again to take a look at the whereabouts of the bright planets for this week. If the weather cooperates tonight we might get a glimpse of Mercury just above Jupiter low in the west shortly after sunset. Jupiter is the brighter of the two and will set first at 9:07, with Mercury following at 9:18. The best time to view them will be about 8:30 or so. The ringed planet Saturn will rise at 9:17 p.m. in the east southeast and will move due south at 3:05 a.m. In telescopes Saturn shows its rings which are a year and a half along their seven and a half year opening. Venus is brilliant in the morning sky and will rise at 6:27 a.m. in the east southeast. It is really a beautiful sight in the morning twilight.
* Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Addendum
Jupiter-Mercury Conjunction March 16, 2011. Created using Stellaruim.
Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog 