Ephemeris: 06/14/2024 – Star Party at the Sleeping Bear Dunes tomorrow night*

* if it’s clear or mostly clear.

This is Bob Moler with Ephemeris for Flag Day, Friday, June 14th. Today the Sun will be up for 15 hours and 33 minutes, setting at 9:30, and it will rise tomorrow at 5:56. The Moon, at first quarter today, will set at 2:22 tomorrow morning.

Tomorrow night, Saturday, June 15th, the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore will team up with the Grand Traverse Astronomical Society to host a star party at the Dune Climb from 9 to 11 PM. It won’t be a star party exactly, because the featured attraction will be the Moon, nearly two days after first quarter. To my mind, this is about the best time to view the Moon showing its craters with deep shadows near the terminator or sunrise line which crosses the moon slowly over the month. There are no planets out in the evening, but we do have some interesting stars to look at besides the Moon. The fairly bright Chinese Tiangong Space Station will pass below the position of the Moon at 10:22 that evening.**

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

This is a simulated image from Stellarium of what the Moon might look like tomorrow night. This is the right side up view that one might see in binoculars. However, depending on the telescope one is looking through, the image could be rotated or even be a mirror image. So be aware of that. The craters are named after persons. The other features are English translations of the Latin names. Created using Stellarium, LibreOffice Draw, and GIMP.

** The information of the Tiangong space station pass came from heavens-above.com. The space station was also displayed in Stellarium when set to the proper time. Tiangong was predicted to be first magnitude by both sources, but Heavens-Above predicted a magnitude twice as bright as Stellarium.