Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

This is Ephemeris for Monday, May 8th. Today the Sun will be up for 14 hours and 32 minutes, setting at 8:56, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:22. The Moon, 3 days past full, will rise at 12:57 tomorrow morning.

At 10 p.m. the spring constellation of Leo the lion will be high in the south. It can be found by locating the Big Dipper high overhead and imagining that a hole were drilled in the bottom of the bowl to let the water leak out. It would drip on the back of this giant cat. The Lion is standing or lying facing westward. His head and mane are seen in the stars as a backwards question mark. This group of stars is also called the sickle. The bright star Regulus is at the bottom, the dot at the bottom of the question mark. A triangle of stars, to the left of Regulus, is the lion’s haunches. Leo contains some nice galaxies visible in moderate sized telescopes. The stars in Leo’s part of the sky are fewer than those in the winter sky.

The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EDT, UT –4 hours). They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Finding Leo the lion from the Big Dipper with no lines. The orientation is for 10 pm, May 8th. Can you find Leo? The Big Dipper? Created using Cartes du Ciel (Sky Charts).

Using the Big Dipper to find Leo. The orientation is for 10 pm on May 8th. For any other time, the orientation would be different, as would the position of the zenith (overhead point). Created using my LookingUp app.

Leo, with drawing of a lion. Created using Stellarium.

Note the star at the left end of Leo is named Denebola. There are several stars that start with “Deneb”. Deneb must mean tail in Arabic because most star names are Arabic in origin. Denebola is the tail of the lion. Deneb Kaitos is the tail of the autumn constellation of Cetus the whale, and Deneb itself is the tail of the summer constellation of Cygnus the swan.