Ephemeris: 05/15/2024 – Where have naked-eye planets wandered off to this week?

This is Ephemeris for Wednesday, May 15th. Today the Sun will be up for 14 hours and 51 minutes, setting at 9:05, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:12. The Moon, at first quarter today, will set at 3:28 tomorrow morning.

Let’s find out where the naked-eye planets have wandered off to this week, and see what planets are left. Jupiter now is too close to the direction of the Sun to be seen. It will move to be in conjunction with the Sun on Saturday and by late June may be visible in the morning sky in twilight. By 5:30 tomorrow morning, about 40 minutes before sunrise, Saturn will be low in the east-southeast and Mars will be lower still in the east. In telescopes, Saturn will look fairly different this year and next with its rings nearly edge on to us. They will open up a bit through October before closing again. We won’t see the rings go exactly edge on because Saturn will be too close to the Sun in the sky on March 23rd next year. After that the rings will open up again.

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

Two of the planets are moving behind the sun. Jupiter is on the left, while Venus is on the right. They will both pass behind the Sun with Jupiter entering the morning sky and Venus entering the evening sky. These images we’re taken by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory or SOHO, which is a satellite that’s orbiting the Earth-Sun L1 point, a million miles sunward of the Earth. Notice that toward the end of the sequence of images a whole lot of what looks like snow shows up on the image. That is the CME of the 8th reaching SOHO and all the subatomic particles hit the imager in the satellite causing all the snow. An hour later of the of these the CME will tangle with the Earth’s magnetic field. Credit: ESA, NASA.

The moon as it might appear in binoculars or a small telescope at 10:00 PM tonight, May 15th 2024. Selected features are labeled. Created using Stellarium, LibreOffice Draw, and GIMP.

Saturn and Mars as they might be seen low in the southeastern horizon in 5:30 AM, or about 45 minutes before sunrise,tomorrow morning May 16, 2024. Saturn will rise at 3:48 AM, Mars at 4:36 AM. Created using Stellarium.

The planet Saturn and its satellite Titan as might be seen in the telescope, although greatly enlarged from what would be seen in the small telescope since, Saturn is almost a billion miles away. It’s apparent diameter is 16.57″ (seconds of arc) and it’s rings span 38.6″. The rings, as can be seen, are very thin and present a 2 1/2° tilt to us. Mars is too small to be represented here, it’s 4.88″ in diameter . My usual policy is to show planets that are 10″ or greater because they will actually show a decent disc in a small telescope. Created using Cartes du Ciel (Sky Charts).

The naked-eye planets and the Moon at sunset and sunrise on a single night, starting with sunset on the right tonight, May 15th 2024. The night ends on the left with sunrise tomorrow morning on the 16th. Click or tap on the image to enlarge it. Created using my LookingUp app and GIMP.