06/21/2022 – Ephemeris – Summer arrives today!

This is Ephemeris for Tuesday, June 21st. Today the Sun will be up for 15 hours and 34 minutes, setting at 9:32, and it will rise tomorrow at 5:57. The Moon, 1 day past last quarter, will rise at 2:28 tomorrow morning.

Summer arrived at 5:14 this morning (9:14 UT). In all the excitement, I forgot to mention that the waning Moon is passing the long line of planets in the morning. Tomorrow morning, it will be nearing Mars. Today, the Sun will be out a bit over 15 ½ hours for us in the Interlochen/Traverse City area. Also, the Sun will reach up to nearly 67 degrees altitude above the southern horizon at local noon, that’s 1:44 pm. We are now climbing down from those extreme values, at first slowly, but with increasing rapidity as summer goes on. However, the Northern Hemisphere is continuing to warm up. Our warmest average temperatures tend to be near the end of July. What’s really neat is, that the Earth is farther from the Sun than it was six months ago as winter started.

The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EDT, UT – 4 hours). They may be different for your location.

Addendum

DSCOVR image of Earth near summer solstice with magnified Michigan animation. Most of Michigan’n mitt is obscured in the north where I’m located, plus the Upper Peninsula. Image taken 1:26 pm EDT, June 19, 2022. Credit NASA/NOAA DSCOVR satellite in halo orbit of Sun-Earth L1 Lagrange Point.

The sun’s daily path through the sky from horizon to horizon on the first day of summer, the summer solstice. Credit My LookingUp program.