04/04/2014 – Ephemeris – Follow the Moon this weekend

Note:  Sorry for the late post.

Ephemeris for Friday, April 4th.  The sun will rise at 7:17.  It’ll be up for 12 hours and 55 minutes, setting at 8:13.   The Moon, 3 days before first quarter, will set at 1:32 tomorrow morning.

During this weekend the Moon will be slowly crossing the evening sky, approaching the planet Jupiter.  Pay attention if you can to each night’s position and how its phase changes.  It is moving farther from the sun in the sky, so we see it more and more illuminated by the sun.  Sunday night it will draw even with Jupiter, with the planet some 10 moon widths north or above the Moon.  It doesn’t seem at first thought that the Moon rotates, since we see the same face from the Earth all the time,.  But the Moon does rotate, once a month.  If it didn’t rotate we’d see all of it from our changing view of it over the month.  The part of the Moon we can’t see from Earth is not the dark side, it is the far side which is fully illuminated at our new moon.

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

Addendum

Motion and phase of the Moon for April 4, 5, and 6 2014. Created using Cartes duCiel (SkyCharts).

Click on image to enlarge.  Yes, the moon is really that small.