06/19/2012 – Ephemeris – Astronomy at the Traverse Area District Library

Ephemeris for Tuesday, June 19th.  Today the sun will be up for 15 hours and 33 minutes, setting at 9:30.  The moon is new today, and won’t be visible.  |  Tomorrow the sun will rise at 5:57.

The Grand Traverse Astronomical Society will host an event at the Traverse Area District Library, on Woodmere Street in Traverse City, starting at 11 am this morning.  They will be showing the sun through safely filtered telescopes and have other hands on activities.  The sun is really getting fascinating to view with a great number of sunspots that are appearing now.  The sunspots come and go.  Right now a big group is rotating off the edge of the sun that caused northern lights over North America last weekend.  There may be some active regions that will rotate on to the sun’s disc soon.  Usually sunspots last a couple of weeks.  They are the result of intense magnetic fields within the sun that cool the gasses and cause the dark spots.

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