Archive
02/13/2012 – Ephemeris – Orion and Scorpius
Ephemeris for Monday, February 13th. The sun will rise at 7:46. It’ll be up for 10 hours and 21 minutes, setting at 6:07. The moon, 1 day before last quarter, will rise at 1:34 tomorrow morning.
The most prominent constellation of the winter sky is Orion, and is most astronomer’s favorite. It seems odd that such a minor personage of Greek myth would have such a prominent constellation named for him. He is even mentioned twice in the book of Job, though in the the original Hebrew the word for Orion means fool. And that pretty much sums Orion’s life up. A luckless fool. One of several contradictory stories of his death has Orion dying of a Scorpion sting. And when placing Orion in the heavens the gods made sure that Orion and Scorpius are never in the sky at the same time. This however doesn’t work in the southern hemisphere. Orion can be found in the south at 9 p.m. an upright rectangle of bright stars framing the three stars as his belt.
* Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Addendum
Orion upright and due south. Created using Stellarium.
08/18/11 – Ephemeris – The constellation of Scorpius the scorpion
Thursday, August 18th. The sun rises at 6:48. It’ll be up for 13 hours and 55 minutes, setting at 8:43. The moon, 3 days before last quarter, will rise at 10:25 this evening.
There’s a large constellation located low in the south as it starts to get dark about 10 tonight It’s Scorpius the scorpion. Its brightest star is Antares in its heart, a red giant star, that I get calls about from time to time as being a UFO. From Antares to the right is a star then a vertical arc of three stars that is its head. The Scorpion’s tail is a line of stars running down to the left of Antares swooping to the horizon before coming back up and ending in a pair of stars that portray his poisonous stinger. Scorpius looks huge lying on the southern horizon. But if you go south Scorpius will be higher in the sky, and will look smaller. Being close to the horizon from here, Scorpius shares with the rising and setting sun and moon the illusion of increased size.
* Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Addendum
Scorpius at 10 p.m. tonight from near 45 degrees north. Created using Stellarium.
Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog 