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10/22/2013 – Ephemeris – Misinformation about Comet ISON: It ain’t Nibiru
Ephemeris for Tuesday, October 22nd. The sun will rise at 8:07. It’ll be up for 10 hours and 38 minutes, setting at 6:45. The moon, half way from full to last quarter, will rise at 9:19 this evening.
Don’t believe a lot of what you hear about Comet ISON from friends or the Internet. YouTube, for instance, has some good information, and some really nutty stuff. A couple of items to debunk right here. No, Comet ISON is not the rogue planet Nibiru. Nibiru was a Babylonian astronomical term, probably for the summer solstice point in the sky, not a planet. Ill-informed people want to frighten you by attaching the name to about any bright comet that comes along. I can tell because their knowledge of astronomical terms and planetary orbits is way off base. While the head of a comet can swell up to be greater than the size of the earth, it’s still a pretty good vacuum. We’ve sent spacecraft into cometary heads which have all survived.
Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
12/21/2012 – Ephemeris – Well, we’re still here
Ephemeris for Friday, December 21st. The sun will rise at 8:16. It’ll be up for 8 hours and 48 minutes, setting at 5:05. The moon, 1 day past first quarter, will set at 2:53 tomorrow morning.
Well, we’re still here. The winter solstice arrived at 6:12 this morning, and nothing happened. There’s no planetary alignment. The supposed alignment with the center of the galaxy, which is 6 degrees off anyway was at its closest 15 years ago. And the supposed planet Nibiru that was to collide with the earth or interfere with the earth somehow, hasn’t shown up. Even we amateur astronomers would have seen it for at least the last 5 years. To those who say its sneaking up on us from behind the sun. I say we have spacecraft flying all over the solar system, so we don’t have any blind spots for it to hide in. So I wonder when the next prediction of the end of the world will pop up, to which I will sigh: “Not again.”
Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Addendum
The sun at the winter solstice 2012. The horizontal line is the sun’s path, the ecliptic, while the diagonal line is the galactic equator. Sagittarius A is the location of the center of the galaxy some 26,000 light years away behind a black cloud of dust and gas. Created using Cartes du Ciel.
Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog 