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04/21/2015 – Ephemeris – The Moon will pass the Hyades star cluster today to pass near Venus tonight
Apr 21. This is Bob Moler with Ephemeris for Tuesday, April 21st. Today the Sun will be up for 13 hours and 46 minutes, setting at 8:35. The Moon, 3 days past new, will set at midnight. Tomorrow the Sun will rise at 6:47.
The moon, which was new last Saturday passed the face of the constellation Taurus the bull earlier today. The face of Taurus is a letter V shape of stars which is the star cluster called the Hyades. There’s a bright orange star that appears at the left tip of the V called Aldebaran, which actually doesn’t belong to the cluster. At 9:30 the crescent Moon will have also just passed the brilliant planet Venus. By then they will be nearly 8 degrees apart, which is a bit less than the width of a fist held at arm’s length. The Moon, Venus and all the planets move very close along the path of the Sun in the sky, called the ecliptic. Even so the Moon is now about 5 degrees south of the ecliptic and Venus about 2 degrees north of it.
Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Addendum
The Moon with Venus and the Hyades at 9:30 p.m. April 21, 2015. Note the Pleiades on the right. Created using Stellarium.
02/20/2015 – Ephemeris – The Moon joins Venus and Mars in the west tonight
Ephemeris for Friday, February 20th. The sun will rise at 7:35. It’ll be up for 10 hours and 42 minutes, setting at 6:17. The moon, 2 days past new, will set at 8:49 this evening.
Tonight the two day old moon will be seen in the west in a tight triangle with Venus and Mars. They will become visible about 7 o’clock. The planets will be to the left of the Moon with much dimmer Mars above Venus. The formation is tight enough that the motion of the moon will be evident between 7 and when the Moon sets at 8:49. The moon moves its own diameter in about an hour. The moon will also exhibit earthshine, the reflection of the bright earth in the moon’s sky on the night side of the Moon itself. The earthshine lit part of the moon shows a ghostly man in the moon image we are familiar with at full moon. This earthshine is visible on the Moon for a few days before new moon to a few days after new moon.
Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Addendum
Views of the Venus, Mars, Moon grouping from three locations.
Appearance of the grouping from northern Michigan, US
Venus and Mars with the Moon at 7 p.m. EST on February 20, 2015. This is for northern Michigan. Created using Stellarium.
Appearance of the grouping from Los Angeles, CA
Venus and Mars with the Moon at 8 p.m. PST on February 20, 2015. This is for Los Angeles, CA. Created using Stellarium.
Appearance of the grouping from London, UK
Venus and Mars with the Moon at 20:28 GMT on February 20, 2015. This is for London, UK. Created using Stellarium.
01/09/2015 – Ephemeris – Tomorrow Mercury almost makes a conjunction with Venus but falls back
Ephemeris for Friday, January 9th. The sun will rise at 8:19. It’ll be up for 9 hours and 1 minute, setting at 5:20. The Moon, 4 days before last quarter, will rise at 10:06 this evening.
Low in the southwest just after sunset, say around 6 to 6:15 in the evening Venus and Mercury can be seen seeming to flirt with one another. Venus has been moving away from the Sun in the evening sky for a couple of month’s not, but hasn’t been all that visible. Mercury, named after the messenger of the gods is fleet of orbit and is almost about to catch up with Venus. Except it can’t, not this time. Tomorrow evening Mercury will appear closest to Venus about 0.6 angular degrees away, a bit more than the width of the Moon. So for another day the two planets will appear close. But after tomorrow night they will separate with Mercury not able to keep up. Next Tuesday it will reach its greatest elongation or separation from the sun and fall back.
Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Addendum
Venus, the straight track, and Mercury are shown for every evening from yesterday 1/08/15 to 01/23/15. The planets are marked for every night at 6 p.m. and tagged every other day. with month-day and magnitude. The higher the magnitude value the dimmer it is. Created using Cartes du Ceil (Sky Charts).
01/08/2015 – Ephemeris -Venus and Mercury quasi-conjunction Saturday – I
Ephemeris for Thursday, January 8th. The sun will rise at 8:19. It’ll be up for 9 hours even, setting at 5:19. The moon, 4 days past full, will rise at 9:08 this evening.
The planets Venus and Mercury are closing their positions in the southwest in the early evening. They will appear their closest Saturday. For the last few years these two planets without natural satellites have hosted an artificial satellite each. Venus is orbited by the European Space Agency’s Venus Express spacecraft since 2006. Just a few weeks ago it’s fuel tanks ran dry, so it could no longer point its solar panels toward the sun and antenna toward the earth. It will soon plunge into Venus’ thick atmosphere. A like fate will also befall the MESSENGER spacecraft now orbiting close to Mercury. It took 7 years to get to Mercury and so far orbited it for nearly 4 years. It too is running out of fuel and will soon crash on the planet.
Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Addendum
Animation of the Quasi-conjunction of Venus and Mercury. Time span 1/05/2015 to 1/15/2015 at 7 p.m. Created by Bob Moler using Stellarium and GIMP.
Artist rendition of Venus Express at Venus. Credit: ESA/AP.
MESSENGER spacecraft at Mercury an artist’s concept. Credit NASA/JPL/APL.
10/24/2014 -Ephemeris – Venus will pass superior conjunction with the Sun tomorrow
Ephemeris for Friday, October 24th. The sun will rise at 8:09. It’ll be up for 10 hours and 33 minutes, setting at 6:43. The moon, 1 day past new, will set at 7:20 this evening.
Tomorrow’s event will not be visible. Venus will pass behind the Sun, though not directly behind it. Venus can be viewed from the SOHO spacecraft go to http://spaceweather.com/, at the bottom click the link for Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, Click on the Sun Now, then LASCO C2. The event is called a superior conjunction, meaning the Venus is beyond the Sun. It will be moving from west of the Sun to the east, from the morning side of the Sun to the evening side. Venus has been in the morning sky since January 11th. So it is a morning planet for about 9 months and moves to the evening sky for another 9 months. In a month or so, Venus will appear low in the southwestern sky shortly after sunset. It will be our super bright evening star next spring.
Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Addendum
Venus approaching superior conjunction 10/20/2014 to 10/23/2014. Credit NASA – SOHO LASCO C2.
04/24/2014 – Ephemeris – Venus and the Moon in the morning
Ephemeris for Thursday, April 24th. The sun rises at 6:43. It’ll be up for 13 hours and 55 minutes, setting at 8:38. The moon, 2 days past last quarter, will rise at 4:39 tomorrow morning.
The planet Venus will be hanging with the moon for the next two mornings. Tomorrow morning the crescent Moon will appear to the right and above Venus. The planet will rise at 5:13, though it should be high enough to spot by 5:30 or 5:45 a.m. in the east. Saturday morning the crescent moon will be to the left of Venus. The moon will be passing Venus about 5 p.m. tomorrow afternoon. Parts of Asia will get a good look at that. We’ll get before and after shots of it. Viewing the moon and planets near the sun is easy or hard depending on the season. For the best views its generally late winter and spring evenings and late summer and autumn mornings. It’s the wrong time of year for easy Venus viewing.
Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Addendum
Venus and the Moon on two consecutive mornings 04/25/14 and 04/26/14 at 6 a.m. The yellow line is the ecliptic which is the path of the Sun in the sky. Created using Cartes du Ciel (Sky Charts).
03/21/2014 – Ephemeris – Star party and Venus this weekend
Ephemeris for Friday, March 21st. The sun will rise at 7:43. It’ll be up for 12 hours and 12 minutes, setting at 7:56. The moon, 2 days before last quarter, will rise at 1:27 tomorrow morning.
Tomorrow evening the Grand Traverse Astronomical Society will host a star party at Northwestern Michigan College’s Rogers Observatory starting at 9 p.m. On tap if it’s clear will be the planets Jupiter and Mars. As it gets darker, the wonders of the winter sky will still be visible, along with those of the spring skies. The observatory is located south of Traverse City, on Brimley Road between Garfield and Keystone roads. There is a small admission charge for the college. For early morning risers the planet Venus will reach its greatest elongation west of the sun tomorrow at an angle of 47 degrees. From there on late October Venus will appear to be approaching the sun, before emerging into the evening sky.
Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Addendum
Venus at greatest western elongation and its orbit as seen from the earth on March 22, 2014. Created using Stellarium.
The sun looks off-center because we are looking at the orbit from the Earth, and Venus’ orbit is inclined by about 3º from our orbit. The near side of the orbit is only 25 million miles (40 million km) from Earth and is thus foreshortened. The part of the orbit right below the Sun is beyond the Sun and about 93 million miles (150 million km) away from us. Mercury is shown, but not its orbit.
01/10/2014 – Ephemeris – Venus will pass inferior conjunction with the sun tomorrow.
Ephemeris for Friday, January 10th. The sun will rise at 8:18. It’ll be up for 9 hours and 4 minutes, setting at 5:22. The moon, 3 days past first quarter, will set at 4:19 tomorrow morning.
Tomorrow what has been our evening star during summer an autumn will pass between the Earth and the Sun and will enter the morning sky, where sharp-eyed observers will pick it up just before sunrise. That passage is called inferior conjunction, because Venus moves between the Earth and the Sun. Venus and Mercury are called inferior planets, not because of their quality, but because they orbit inside the earth’s orbit. Mars through Neptune are then of course superior planets. The last time Venus passed inferior conjunction, on June 5th, 2012 it passed directly in front of the sun in a rare transit. This time it will be north of the sun by about 5 angular degrees. There’s only a hundred and four years before the next transit.
Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Addendum
Gary Carlisle’s photo of the transit of Venus, June 5, 2012..
10/07/2013 – Ephemeris – The moon will appear to pass Venus early tomorrow morning
Ephemeris for Monday, October 7th. The sun will rise at 7:48. It’ll be up for 11 hours and 23 minutes, setting at 7:11. The moon, 3 days past new, will set at 8:47 this evening.
The moon will be passing the planet Venus around 7 a.m. tomorrow morning, when they will be below the horizon. So tonight and tomorrow evenings we will have before and after views of the event. Tonight the thin crescent moon will be nearly the width of your fist held at arm’s length to the right of Venus. In binoculars or a telescope only the Sea of Crises is completely uncovered by the moon’s terminator. If you haven’t checked out Venus lately, do so. It is now a bit more than half illuminated by the sun. It’s coming almost directly at the earth now at about 80 million miles away and that distance is decreasing by 650 thousand miles a day. Don’t worry, it will miss us by 25 million miles in January, passing between the Earth and the Sun.
Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Addendum
Venus and the Moon on Monday October 7, 2013 at 8 p.m. Created using Stellarium.
Venus and the Moon on Tuesday October 8, 2013 at 8 p.m. Created using Stellarium.
08/02/2013 – Ephemeris – Star Party tonight!
Ephemeris for Friday, August 2nd. The sun rises at 6:30. It’ll be up for 14 hours and 35 minutes, setting at 9:06. The moon, half way from last quarter to new, will rise at 3:38 tomorrow morning.
Tonight the Grand Traverse Astronomical Society and the NMC Astronomy Club will host a star party at Northwestern Michigan College’s Rogers Observatory starting at 9 p.m. featuring, if it’s clear, the planets Venus and Saturn. Some of the wonders of the summer sky can be seen as it gets darker. There are sparkling binary stars and star clusters including the Great Globular Star Cluster in Hercules, the Wild Duck Cluster, the Ring Nebula, the expanding gasses of a dying star. There are also other wonders of the Milky Way to be seen. There will be a program if the skies are too cloudy to observe. 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.
Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog 