08/12/2020 – Ephemeris – Let’s look at a the naked-eye planets for this week
This is Ephemeris for Wednesday, August 12th. Today the Sun will be up for 14 hours and 10 minutes, setting at 8:52, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:43. The Moon, 1 day past last quarter, will rise at 1:16 tomorrow morning.
Let’s look at a the naked-eye planets for this week. Jupiter and Saturn are both low in the south-southeastern sky at 10 pm. Jupiter is the very bright one. To the left of it will be Saturn. They now seem to be separating a bit due to the Earth’s motion now, but they will cross paths in December. Both planets will be up most of the night with Jupiter setting first at 4:02 tomorrow morning and Saturn following at 4:44 am. The next planet visible will be Mars which will rise at 11:22 pm. Its now down to 54.3 million miles (87.5 million kilometers) away, as the Earth slowly overtakes it at the rate of about 3.4 million miles (5.4 million kilometers) a week. Brilliant Venus will rise at 3:09 am in the east-northeast and is as far west from the Sun as it can get today.
The event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Addendum