Ephemeris: 01/05/2024 – The Great Orion Nebula
This is Ephemeris for Friday, January 5th. The Sun will rise at 8:20. It’ll be up for 8 hours and 56 minutes, setting at 5:16. The Moon, 2 days past last quarter, will rise at 3:18 tomorrow morning.
The constellation Orion the hunter is in the south-southeast at 9 p.m. Its upright rectangle of four stars frame his belt of three stars in a straight line and still tilt a bit to the left. Below the belt is what appear to the unaided eye as three more stars arranged vertically, his sword. Binoculars aimed at the middle stars of the sword will find a glowing haze around those stars. That is the Great Orion Nebula, also known as Messier 42 or M42. It is the birthplace of stars, and is even illuminated by a clutch of four hot young stars. Besides stars and protostars being born in the nebula, there are also many double planets not belonging to stars discovered by the James Webb Space Telescope. The planets are only detectable in the infrared, Webb’s specialty.
The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EST, UT –5 hours). They may be different for your location.
Addendum
Ephemeris Extra: Taurus and its two bright star clusters
Based on an article published in the November 2023 issue of the Stellar Sentinel the newsletter of the Grand Traverse Astronomical Society.
In my October presentation to the society I talked about the stars of autumn, moving generally from the constellations close to summer and ending pretty much against the constellations of winter ending with the constellation of Taurus and with the wonderful Pleiades or Seven Sisters. In this article I’ll take a little bit closer look at the Pleiades and especially the Hyades, the face of Taurus the bull.
On the previous page is a family portrait of the Pleiades and Hyades. Yes, family portrait. In Greek mythology, the Hyades are the half sisters of the Pleiades. The god Atlas is their father, Pleione seems to be the mother of the Pleiades, and Aethra is the mother of the Hyades. In astronomical terms the Hyades would then be the older sisters of the Pleiades.
The Hyades is a star cluster that is 153 light years away. It is the closest star cluster to us and somewhat over 6 times the age of the Pleiades. The younger and splashier Pleiades are around 444 light years away, and only 100 million years old. Whereas the Hyades are over 600 million years old. The Pleiades still contain hot blue-white stars which have died out by the time of the age of the Hyades. The brightest star of the letter V of stars is Aldebaran, Taurus’ angry bloodshot eye. It doesn’t belong to the Hyades, being about half the distance.
While the Hyades is not as splashy as the Pleiades are and has less of a role in mythology. However, it did play an important part in history when Taurus was the first constellation of the Zodiac some 4,000 years ago, due to precession of the equinoxes. This is because the letter A, the first letter of our alphabet is taken from the stars of the face of Taurus the bull in what looks to us like a V. But it was turned around to be the A we have today. Back then it was called Aleph the first letter of the alphabet for middle eastern cultures.
The Hyades is also important in astronomical history in that it helps us measure distances to more distant star clusters. The Hyades was the only star cluster close enough to measure its distance by the parallax method before the advent of the European Space Agency’s Hipparcos and Gaia satellites. If one matches stars on the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram of intrinsic brightness versus surface temperature with other star clusters the stars of the main sequence, where stars spend most of their lives burning hydrogen. The difference in the brightness of the main sequence stars gives the measure of how other star clusters measure up as far as distance since the main sequence is a relatively narrow distribution of stars. This works only with star clusters because there are many stars at the same distance which happen to be about the same age. And enough stars to establish the main sequence since stars at later stages of life may have the same temperature, but vastly different brightnesses.
The Pleiades are so large that most telescopes will not allow one to see all the brighter stars at once, so binoculars are the best way to view them. At a dunes star party a few years ago, before COVID, I used my 11-inch (279 mm) Newtonian telescope, which has a 55 inch (1,397 mm) focal length, with a 40 millimeter eyepiece to view the Pleiades. A 40 millimeter eyepiece in that scope gives too low a magnification to use the entire diameter of the primary mirror. All the light doesn’t make it into the eye. That eyepiece gave me about 35 times magnification, so the main stars of the cluster fit into the field of view. The photograph above is nice and all that, but looking with the eye visually at the Pleiades, even with binoculars, you’ll notice something quite different from the photographs. In photographs to make a star brighter you make it bigger. But the eye has a much greater dynamic range. The stars are incredibly brilliant blue white-points of light in the case of the Pleiades. Absolutely beautiful, much more beautiful than any photograph. Not to disparage photographs, but photographs can do what the eye cannot. That is, store light to bring out very faint objects and details. So, let’s take a final look at the Pleiades in a photograph by GTAS member Dan Dall’Olmo.
Ephemeris: 01/04/2024 – Viewing Orion’s Belt
This is Ephemeris for Thursday, January 4th. The Sun will rise at 8:20. It’ll be up for 8 hours and 55 minutes, setting at 5:15. The Moon, 1 day past last quarter, will rise at 2:10 tomorrow morning.
Orion’s belt of three stars is one of the most noticeable star groupings in the sky. There are no other groups of three bright stars in a straight line visible anywhere else in the sky. The star’s names from left to right are Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka. They are actually a bit farther away than the other bright stars of Orion. Alnilam, the center star, is over three times the distance of red giant Betelgeuse above them and over twice as far as blue white giant star Rigel below them. Alnilam is 375 thousand times brighter than the Sun. These three stars were also known as Frigga’s Spindle by the Norsemen. Frigga, also known as Freya, is the goddess from which we get the name of the day of the week we call Friday.
The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EST, UT –5 hours). They may be different for your location.
Addendum
Ephemeris: 01/03/2024 – Where have the naked-eye planets wandered off to this week?
This is Ephemeris for Wednesday, January 3rd. The Sun will rise at 8:20. It’ll be up for 8 hours and 54 minutes, setting at 5:14. The Moon, at last quarter today, will rise at 1:04 tomorrow morning.
Let’s find out where the naked-eye planets have wandered off to this week. Four of those five planets are now visible. Mars rises too close to sunrise to be seen. Saturn and Jupiter are the only evening planets. Saturn can be seen moving from low in the southwest to setting in the west-southwest at 9:30 pm. Jupiter will be moving from the high in the south-southeast to the west-southwest, by midnight and will set at 2:57 am. The last quarter Moon will be in Virgo tomorrow morning. Venus, the brilliant morning star, will rise in the east-southeast at 5:29 am, and be a brilliant beacon in the morning, shining in the southeast before the bright morning twilight claims it around 8 am. Mercury may be glimpsed below and left of it.
The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EST, UT –5 hours). They may be different for your location.
Addendum
Ephemeris Extra: 01/02/2024 – Two remarkable astronomical events for 2024
Ephemeris Extra posts are freestanding posts not tied to a specific Ephemeris radio program on Interlochen Public Radio
Total Solar Eclipse, April 8th
The big astronomical event of 2024, for us in Michigan, will be the total eclipse of the Sun, on the afternoon of Monday, April 8th. The path of totality will just clip the southeastern corner of Michigan by a few miles, so if you want to see the best of totality you need to leave the state. Totality is when the Moon completely covers the brilliant face of the Sun and allows the Sun’s silvery corona to be seen. Totality is the only part of the eclipse that can be viewed without eye protection or by projection.
Two relatively nearby large cities that will see totality are Indianapolis and Cleveland. Parts of Indianapolis will get to see more than 4 minutes of totality. Cleveland will see a little less. The closer you are to the center line of that path the longer totality will last.
For an interactive map of the eclipse path on the Internet, go to eclipse2024.org/eclipse_cities/statemap.html
Weather is always a concern for eclipses. In general the farther south one goes the better the chances there are for clear skies. But all bets are off for eclipse day: It’s gonna be is what it’s gonna be. My current inclination is to head southwest along the eclipse path.
For those staying home and not chasing the shadow of the Moon will see a partial eclipse here with up to 87% of the Sun being blocked by the Moon.
Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS
We expect to see a new bright comet in October: C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS), otherwise known in this article as A3 for short. It may be the brightest comet to appear in our Northern Michigan skies since Comet Hale-Bopp in 1997, and a good deal brighter than 2020’s Comet NEOWISE. At least we’re hoping.
This comet was discovered last January by the station Xi Yi of the Purple Mountain Observatory in China, and a month later by the ATLAS search program on Maui. ATLAS is an acronym for the apocalyptic sounding Asteroid Terrestrial-Impact Last Alert System.
A3 will best be visible from Northern Michigan toward mid-October in the evening, not long after sunset. The comet is expected to reach magnitude 0 at it’s closest to the Sun in late September. However, we will be seeing it best as it’s leaving the vicinity of the Sun. By mid-October its magnitude will have dropped to magnitude 1 which is still pretty bright, and it will be moving at a high angle away from the setting Sun, so it will rapidly increase its distance from the Sun and the horizon faster than it fades in the latter part of October. That is, if it behaves itself. Comets are notoriously fickle in their brightness so we won’t know until we actually see it how bright it’ll be, or how bright or long its tail will be. As of this writing (Mid-December) A3’s brightness is tracking as predicted, at about 16th magnitude. As of January 1st its distance from the Sun was 4.24 AU, about 1 AU inside Jupiter’s orbit. 1 AU (Astronomical Unit) is the mean distance between the Earth and the Sun. The comet can be followed on Seiichi Yoshida’s Weekly Information about Bright Comets webpage: http://www.aerith.net/comet/catalog/2023A3/2023A3.html
Ephemeris: 01/02/2024 – We’re closest to the Sun today
This is Ephemeris for Tuesday, January 2nd. The Sun will rise at 8:20. It’ll be up for 8 hours and 53 minutes, setting at 5:13. The Moon, 1 day before last quarter, will rise at 12:01 tomorrow morning.
We start off the year with the Earth being really close to the Sun. As a matter of fact at 6:59 pm the Earth will reach perihelion, that is as close as it gets to the Sun for the entire year at 91.41 million miles (147.10 million kilometers). It’s not as big a deal as it seems, because the Earth varies only plus or minus a million and a half miles from the Sun over the year out of 93 million miles. It doesn’t make much difference in the amount of heat we get from the Sun. However, it’s much less than what the tilt of the Earth’s axis does to give us our seasons, but what it does do is alter the length of the seasons, and makes winter the shortest season. It’s shorter by about four days than summer, even though in Northern Michigan it doesn’t really seem like it. Today is also the date of the latest sunrise of the year.
The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EST, UT –5 hours). They may be different for your location.
Addendum
Ephemeris Extra: 01/01/2024 – Previewing January skies
This post didn’t make it into a radio program, so enjoy.
We start a new year and a month. The daylight hours start slowly getting longer and will accelerate during the month. Daylight hours in Interlochen and Traverse City will increase from 8 hours and 52 minutes on the 1st to 9 hours and 46 minutes on the 31st. The sunrise time will decrease from 8:20 am on the 1st to 8:03 am at month’s end. The sunset times will increase from 5:12 pm on the 1st to 5:49 pm on the 31st. Along with that the altitude of the sun at noon will increase from 22 degrees tomorrow to nearly 28 degrees at month’s end. It will be a degree lower for folks in the Straits area because they are a degree of latitude farther north. Local noon, by the way for Interlochen and Traverse City is around 12:51 p.m. in January.
The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EST, UT –5 hours). They may be different for your location.
January Evening Star Chart
The planets and stars are plotted for the 15th at 9 p.m. EST in the evening and 6 a.m. for the morning chart. These are the chart times. The brilliant planet Venus will enter the sky at the chart time during the latter half of the month in the southwest. Note that Traverse City is located approximately 45 minutes behind our time meridian, West 75° longitude. (An hour 45 minutes behind our daylight saving time meridian during EDT).
January Morning Star Chart
For a list of constellation names to go with the abbreviations click here.
- Pointer stars at the front of the bowl of the Big Dipper point to Polaris the North Star.
- The leaky bowl of the Big Dipper drips on Leo.
- Follow the arc of the handle of the Big Dipper to the star Arcturus, then
- Follow the spike to Spica.
- QuadR on the star charts is the radiant of the Quadrantid meteor shower which peaks on the 4th at 3:20 a.m. EST (8:20 UT).
Twilight Limits, Nautical and Astronomical
| EST | |||||||
| Morning | Twilight | Evening | Twilight | Dark | Night | Moon | |
| Date | Astro. | Nautical | Nautical | Astro. | Start | End | Illum. |
| 2024-01-01 | 6h35m | 7h11m | 18h22m | 19h01m | 19h01m | 22h59m | 0.68 |
| 2024-01-02 | 6h35m | 7h11m | 18h22m | 19h02m | 19h02m | – | 0.59 |
| 2024-01-03 | 6h35m | 7h11m | 18h23m | 19h03m | 19h03m | 0h01m | 0.50 |
| 2024-01-04 | 6h35m | 7h11m | 18h24m | 19h03m | 19h03m | 1h05m | 0.40 |
| 2024-01-05 | 6h35m | 7h11m | 18h25m | 19h04m | 19h04m | 2h10m | 0.30 |
| 2024-01-06 | 6h35m | 7h11m | 18h26m | 19h05m | 19h05m | 3h19m | 0.21 |
| 2024-01-07 | 6h35m | 7h11m | 18h27m | 19h06m | 19h06m | 4h31m | 0.13 |
| 2024-01-08 | 6h35m | 7h11m | 18h28m | 19h07m | 19h07m | 5h45m | 0.07 |
| 2024-01-09 | 6h35m | 7h10m | 18h29m | 19h08m | 19h08m | 6h35m | 0.02 |
| 2024-01-10 | 6h35m | 7h10m | 18h30m | 19h09m | 19h09m | 6h35m | 0.00 |
| 2024-01-11 | 6h35m | 7h10m | 18h31m | 19h10m | 19h10m | 6h35m | 0.01 |
| 2024-01-12 | 6h35m | 7h10m | 18h32m | 19h11m | 19h11m | 6h35m | 0.04 |
| 2024-01-13 | 6h34m | 7h09m | 18h33m | 19h12m | 20h14m | 6h34m | 0.10 |
| 2024-01-14 | 6h34m | 7h09m | 18h34m | 19h13m | 21h36m | 6h34m | 0.18 |
| 2024-01-15 | 6h34m | 7h09m | 18h35m | 19h14m | 22h55m | 6h34m | 0.28 |
| 2024-01-16 | 6h33m | 7h08m | 18h36m | 19h15m | – | 6h33m | 0.39 |
| 2024-01-17 | 6h33m | 7h08m | 18h37m | 19h16m | 0h12m | 6h33m | 0.51 |
| 2024-01-18 | 6h33m | 7h07m | 18h39m | 19h17m | 1h28m | 6h33m | 0.62 |
| 2024-01-19 | 6h32m | 7h07m | 18h40m | 19h18m | 2h44m | 6h32m | 0.72 |
| 2024-01-20 | 6h32m | 7h06m | 18h41m | 19h20m | 3h59m | 6h32m | 0.81 |
| 2024-01-21 | 6h31m | 7h06m | 18h42m | 19h21m | 5h12m | 6h31m | 0.88 |
| 2024-01-22 | 6h30m | 7h05m | 18h43m | 19h22m | 6h18m | 6h30m | 0.94 |
| 2024-01-23 | 6h30m | 7h04m | 18h44m | 19h23m | – | – | 0.98 |
| 2024-01-24 | 6h29m | 7h04m | 18h46m | 19h24m | – | – | 1.00 |
| 2024-01-25 | 6h28m | 7h03m | 18h47m | 19h25m | – | – | 1.00 |
| 2024-01-26 | 6h28m | 7h02m | 18h48m | 19h26m | – | – | 0.98 |
| 2024-01-27 | 6h27m | 7h01m | 18h49m | 19h28m | 19h28m | 19h44m | 0.95 |
| 2024-01-28 | 6h26m | 7h00m | 18h51m | 19h29m | 19h29m | 20h48m | 0.90 |
| 2024-01-29 | 6h25m | 7h00m | 18h52m | 19h30m | 19h30m | 21h51m | 0.83 |
| 2024-01-30 | 6h24m | 6h59m | 18h53m | 19h31m | 19h31m | 22h53m | 0.76 |
| 2024-01-31 | 6h24m | 6h58m | 18h54m | 19h32m | 19h32m | 23h57m | 0.67 |
Twilight calendar was generated using Cartes du Ciel (Sky Charts).
See my blog post: Twilight Zone for the definitions of the different periods of twilight here: https://bobmoler.wordpress.com/2018/09/27/.
NASA Calendar of Planetary Events
Date Time Event
Jan 1 Mo Venus: 37.4° W
1 Mo 10:28 am Moon Apogee: 404900 km
2 Tu 6:59 pm Perihelion: .9833 AU
3 We 10:30 pm Last Quarter
4 Th 4:15 am Quadrantid Shower: ZHR = 120
4 Th 1:52 pm Moon Descending Node
4 Th 6:06 pm Moon-Spica: 2.2° S
6 Sa 7:35 pm Venus-Antares: 6.3° N
8 Mo 9:24 am Moon-Antares: .8° S
8 Mo 3:12 pm Moon-Venus: 5.9° N
10 We 2:04 am Moon South Dec.: 28.2° S
11 Th 6:57 am New Moon
12 Fr 8:59 am Mercury Elongation: 23.5° W
13 Sa 5:35 am Moon Perigee: 362300 km
14 Su 4:31 am Moon-Saturn: 2.1° N
17 We 9:05 am Moon Ascending Node
17 We 10:53 pm First Quarter
18 Th 3:40 pm Moon-Jupiter: 2.9° S
20 Sa 8:25 am Moon-Pleiades: .9° N
22 Mo 10:44 pm Moon North Dec.: 28.2° N
24 We 2:00 pm Moon-Pollux: 1.9° N
25 Th 12:54 pm Full Moon
25 Th 3:04 pm Moon-Beehive: 3.6° S
27 Sa 10:48 am Mercury-Mars: .2° N
29 Mo 3:14 am Moon Apogee: 405800 km
31 We 3:17 pm Moon Descending Node
Feb 1 Th Venus: 30.8° W
All event times are given for UTC-5 Eastern Standard Time.
Sky Events Calendar by Fred Espenak and Sumit Dutta (NASA’s GSFC),
http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SKYCAL/SKYCAL.html.
If you go to the above site you can print out a list like the above for the entire year or calendar pages for your time zone.
Sun and Moon Rising and Setting Events
LU Ephemeris of Sky Events for Interlochen/TC
January, 2024 Local time zone: EST
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| DATE | SUN SUN DAYLIGHT| TWILIGHT* |MOON RISE OR ILLUM |
| | RISE SET HOURS | END START |PHASE SET** TIME FRACTN|
+=======================================================================+
|Mon 1| 08:20a 05:12p 08:52 | 06:22p 07:09a | Rise 10:58p 70%|
|Tue 2| 08:20a 05:13p 08:53 | 06:23p 07:09a | Rise 12:01a 61%|
|Wed 3| 08:20a 05:14p 08:54 | 06:24p 07:09a |L Qtr Rise 01:04a 51%|
|Thu 4| 08:20a 05:15p 08:55 | 06:25p 07:10a | Rise 02:10a 42%|
|Fri 5| 08:20a 05:16p 08:56 | 06:26p 07:10a | Rise 03:18a 32%|
|Sat 6| 08:19a 05:17p 08:57 | 06:27p 07:09a | Rise 04:30a 23%|
+------+-----------------------+----------------+-----------------------+
|Sun 7| 08:19a 05:18p 08:58 | 06:28p 07:09a | Rise 05:45a 15%|
|Mon 8| 08:19a 05:19p 09:00 | 06:29p 07:09a | Rise 06:58a 8%|
|Tue 9| 08:19a 05:20p 09:01 | 06:30p 07:09a | Rise 08:04a 3%|
|Wed 10| 08:18a 05:21p 09:02 | 06:31p 07:09a | Rise 08:59a 1%|
|Thu 11| 08:18a 05:23p 09:04 | 06:32p 07:09a |New Set 05:25p 1%|
|Fri 12| 08:18a 05:24p 09:06 | 06:33p 07:09a | Set 06:49p 3%|
|Sat 13| 08:17a 05:25p 09:07 | 06:34p 07:08a | Set 08:14p 9%|
+------+-----------------------+----------------+-----------------------+
|Sun 14| 08:17a 05:26p 09:09 | 06:35p 07:08a | Set 09:36p 17%|
|Mon 15| 08:16a 05:27p 09:11 | 06:36p 07:08a | Set 10:55p 26%|
|Tue 16| 08:16a 05:29p 09:12 | 06:37p 07:07a | Set 12:12a 37%|
|Wed 17| 08:15a 05:30p 09:14 | 06:38p 07:07a |F Qtr Set 01:28a 48%|
|Thu 18| 08:15a 05:31p 09:16 | 06:40p 07:06a | Set 02:43a 59%|
|Fri 19| 08:14a 05:33p 09:18 | 06:41p 07:06a | Set 03:59a 69%|
|Sat 20| 08:13a 05:34p 09:20 | 06:42p 07:05a | Set 05:11a 79%|
+------+-----------------------+----------------+-----------------------+
|Sun 21| 08:12a 05:35p 09:22 | 06:43p 07:05a | Set 06:17a 86%|
|Mon 22| 08:12a 05:37p 09:24 | 06:44p 07:04a | Set 07:14a 93%|
|Tue 23| 08:11a 05:38p 09:27 | 06:45p 07:03a | Set 08:00a 97%|
|Wed 24| 08:10a 05:39p 09:29 | 06:47p 07:03a | Set 08:36a 99%|
|Thu 25| 08:09a 05:41p 09:31 | 06:48p 07:02a |Full Rise 05:30p 100%|
|Fri 26| 08:08a 05:42p 09:33 | 06:49p 07:01a | Rise 06:37p 98%|
|Sat 27| 08:07a 05:43p 09:36 | 06:50p 07:00a | Rise 07:43p 95%|
+------+-----------------------+----------------+-----------------------+
|Sun 28| 08:06a 05:45p 09:38 | 06:52p 06:59a | Rise 08:47p 91%|
|Mon 29| 08:05a 05:46p 09:41 | 06:53p 06:59a | Rise 09:50p 84%|
|Tue 30| 08:04a 05:48p 09:43 | 06:54p 06:58a | Rise 10:53p 77%|
|Wed 31| 08:03a 05:49p 09:46 | 06:55p 06:57a | Rise 11:56p 69%|
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
* Nautical Twilight
** Moonrise or moonset, whichever occurs between sunrise and sunset
Generated using my LookingUp for DOS program.
Ephemeris: 01/01/2024 – Why does the year start on January 1st?
Happy New Year! This is Ephemeris for New Year’s Day, Monday, January 1st 2024. The Sun will rise at 8:20. It’ll be up for 8 hours and 52 minutes, setting at 5:12. The Moon, 2 days before last quarter, will rise at 10:58 this evening.
Here we are January 1st the start of a new year. So why does the year start on January 1st? For a long time the Romans started their year in the middle of March near the vernal equinox, the Ides of March to be specific. The Hebrew calendar was the lunar calendar of either 12 or 13 months in a year so that 19 years in their lunar calendar was exactly 19 years on the Roman or Julian solar calendar. The Greeks until Roman times had a lunar calendar dictated haphazardly by every city state. Their year started with the summer solstice around mid-June. The Romans initially had a 10-month calendar. When they finally added those two months, the first they named after the god Janus the god of beginnings and endings, who had two faces, looking backward to the past and forward to the future.
The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EST, UT –5 hours). They may be different for your location.
Addendum
Ephemeris: 12/29/2023 – Two great celestial events for 2024
This is Ephemeris for Friday, December 29th. Today the Sun will be up for 8 hours and 50 minutes, setting at 5:10, and it will rise tomorrow at 8:19. The Moon, 3 days past full, will rise at 7:43 this evening.
The year 2024 should give us two great events. The first is a total solar eclipse whose path will pass close to Michigan. It actually clip it by a few miles in the southeast corner of our state on April 8th. The eclipse will be even better here than the August 21st, 2017 eclipse by several percent. About 87% of the Sun will be covered by the Moon in Northern Michigan. In the US the path of totality will run from Texas to Maine, and will pass over the cities of Indianapolis and Cleveland. Then in October a new comet will be in our evening sky, and it might be quite bright. It’s Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS. If, and it’s a big IF, its brightness tracks as it has been since its discovery, nearly a year ago, it will rival the average first magnitude star, like Betelgeuse by October, and be easily visible in the west after sunset by mid-month. It won’t be as bright as Comet Hale-Bopp, for those old enough to have seen it in 1997, but hopefully brighter than Comet NEOWISE in the summer of 2020.
The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EST, UT –5 hours). They may be different for your location.
Addendum
Ephemeris: 12/28/2023 – Next year in rockets and space
This is Ephemeris for Thursday, December 28th. Today the Sun will be up for 8 hours and 49 minutes, setting at 5:09, and it will rise tomorrow at 8:19. The Moon, 2 days past full, will rise at 6:35 this evening.
Let’s take a look at 2024 in space exploration. The Artemis 2 mission of sending a crew of four around the Moon and back will take place no earlier than November, so it could be pushed back into 2025 if there are any difficulties. SpaceX early next year will attempt the third flight of their gigantic Starship rocket. Hopefully this time it will reach near orbit. Blue Origin, sort of in competition to SpaceX, but have never put anything into orbit yet, is expected to launch their New Glenn rocket, which uses 7 BE4 engines next year. Also United Launch Alliance will be expected to launch their new Vulcan Centaur rocket, perhaps as early as January next year. It uses two Blue Origin BE4 engines as its main engines plus solid rocket boosters.
The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EST, UT –5 hours). They may be different for your location.
Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog 