10/31/2018 – Ephemeris – The bright planets tonight

Ephemeris for Halloween, Wednesday, October 31st. The Sun will rise at 8:19. It’ll be up for 10 hours and 13 minutes, setting at 6:32. The Moon, at last quarter today, will rise at 1:02 tomorrow morning.

Let’s look at the bright planets for tonight. Three of them are visible in the evening sky. Jupiter will be barely visible very low in the west-southwest after sunset. It will set at 7:30 p.m. Saturn, the ringed planet, will start the evening low in the south-southwestern sky and will set at 9:49 p.m. Mars will be low in the south-southeast as the skies darken tonight. and is now 73.2 million miles (117.9 million km) away. Mars will be due south at 8:39 p.m., and it will set at 1:33a.m. Mars is picking up speed moving eastward, crossing the constellation of Capricornus this month. It’s currently in eastern Capricornus. Venus, now a morning planet, will rise at 7:45 tomorrow morning, 34 minutes after the Sun.

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

Addendum

Evening planets at 8 p.m. October 31, 2018.  Click on image to enlarge.  Created using Stellarium.

The waning crescent Moon as it should appear tomorrow morning in binoculars. Created using Stellarium.

Saturn and Mars with the same magnification at 8 p.m. Created using Cartes du Ciel (Sky Charts).

Planets and the Moon at sunset and sunrise of a single night starting with sunset on the right on October 31, 2018. The night ends on the left with sunrise on November 1st. Click on the image to enlarge. Created using my LookingUp program.

 

Update

I know, the content above isn’t very spooky for Halloween.  However, NASA came to the rescue with their Halloween Special: Universe of Monsters.  Fitting with our theme today, it’s about planets… of the Exo variety.  Click here!