01/29/2016 – Ephemeris – The rabbit that got away

Ephemeris for Friday, January 29th.  The Sun will rise at 8:05.  It’ll be up for 9 hours and 40 minutes, setting at 5:46.   The Moon, 2 days before last quarter, will rise at 11:40 this evening.

Orion, the central winter constellation is seen in the south at 9 p.m. He is a hunter, but he’s preoccupied with the charge of Taurus the bull from the upper right.  At Orion’s feet, and unnoticed by him is the small constellation of Lepus the hare.  It’s very hard to see a rabbit in its eight dim stars: however, I do see a rabbit’s head ears and shoulders.  A misshapen box is the head and face of this critter facing to the left.  His ears extend upwards from the upper right star of the box, and the bend forward a bit.  Two stars to the right of the box and a bit farther apart hint at the front part of the body.  In Lepus telescopes can find M79, a distant globular star cluster, one of the few of these compact clusters visible in the winter sky.

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

Addendum

An animation showing the stars, constellations and artwork of Lepus, Orion and Taurus. Created using Stellarium and GIMP.

As you can see, the image above of Lepus isn’t how I imagine the hare as I mentioned in the text.