Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Ephemeris for Thursday, May 16th.  Today the sun will be up for 14 hours and 51 minutes, setting at 9:05.   The moon, 2 days before first quarter, will set at 1:52 tomorrow morning.  Tomorrow the sun will rise at 6:12.

Last week we had an annular eclipse of the sun.  The moon didn’t fill up the face of the sun, leaving a ring or annulus.  The moon, due to its innately elliptical orbit which is also affected by the sun, and to a much lesser extent the other planets, varies it’s low or perigee distance and its far or apogee distance each month.  We saw apogee on Monday at 252,000 miles,  perigee will be 223,000 miles on the 25th.  That’s a pretty wide range of distances, but since there’s normally nothing to compare the moon’s size this variation in size is not noticeable until there’s a solar eclipse.  The large appearance of the moon at its rising and setting is an optical illusion.  The moon’s closer when overhead than when rising.

Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.  They may be different for your location.