04/20/2023 – Ephemeris – There’s a hybrid solar eclipse happening today*

This is Ephemeris for Thursday, April 20th. Today the Sun will be up for 13 hours and 43 minutes, setting at 8:33, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:48. The Moon is new today, and won’t be visible.

Last night and in the early morning hours this morning, for us, there was a solar eclipse visible from the Indian Ocean, through Indonesia and ending in the Pacific Ocean. This was a type of eclipse that I haven’t talked about before, a hybrid eclipse. It started at sunrise with the Moon too far away to completely cover the face of the Sun, as an annular eclipse. The central part of the eclipse path, due to the fact that the Earth is a sphere, was nearly four thousand miles closer to the Moon than at sunrise and sunset, evolves into a total eclipse. As the Moon’s shadow falls off toward the limb of the Earth, the increasing distance of the shadow to the Earth’s surface, causes the Moon to shrink enough to revert to an annular eclipse once again.

Next eclipse season, more specifically October 14th, there will be an annular eclipse, whose path crosses the US from the Oregon-California border to Texas. We will get a partial eclipse out of it. The big event will occur in the next eclipse season when a total solar eclipse will occur to cross the US from Texas to Maine on April 8, 2024. The path of totality will clip the southeast corner of Michigan.

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

*  By the time you read this, the eclipse is either happening right now, or it’s over.

Addendum

World solar eclipse map for the hybrid eclipse, April 20, 2023. The central path is in red, while the total eclipse part of the path is highlighted in blue.  The image is of the world solar eclipse map for the hybrid eclipse, April 20, 2023. Taken from https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEplot/SEplot2001/SE2023Apr20H.GIF. Credit: NASA’s GSFC, Fred Espenak.

12/05/2022 – Ephemeris – Mars will hide behind the full Moon Wednesday night

This is Ephemeris for Monday, December 5th. Today the Sun will be up for 8 hours and 58 minutes, setting at 5:02, and it will rise tomorrow at 8:05. The Moon, 2 days before full, will set at 6:36 tomorrow morning.

Late Wednesday night we might get to view a really cool event when the full moon will cover or in astronomical lingo occult the planet Mars. In the Grand Traverse Region, this will occur for an hour between approximately 10:15 to 11:15 pm. The exact times depend on your location, and can vary by several minutes or more. Being a full moon, Mars might be difficult to spot. I’ll have more and hopefully more accurate information tomorrow. When astronomical objects line up like this, it’s called a syzygy. This time it’s a lineup of the Sun, Earth Moon and Mars in nearly a straight line, with both the Moon and Mars in opposition from the Sun on the same night. When the Moon is in opposition, we call it a full moon instead.

The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EST, UT –5 hours). They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Mars ingress and egress chart and times for Traverse City, MI. The times will vary by a minute or two in the IPR listening area, ingress being earlier to the west and north and later east and south. Egress times will be earlier west and later east of Traverse City.

World map showing the area that the occultation of Mars will be visible. Occultation visibility will move from west to east. Credit: Occult version 4.

 

11/08/2022 – Ephemeris – Solar Eclipses in our future

This is Ephemeris for Election Day, Tuesday, November 8th. Today the Sun will be up for 9 hours and 51 minutes, setting at 5:22, and it will rise tomorrow at 7:31. The Moon, at full today, will rise at 5:28 this evening.

If you are listening to me early this morning, and it’s clear there is a lunar eclipse in progress. The eclipse will be total before 6:41 am, and partial until the Moon sets at 7:40 am. We will have to wait until March 2025 to see the next total lunar eclipse from our area.

However, we will be able to see two partial solar eclipses in the next year and a half. The first is October 14th, 2023. Nearly half of the Sun will be blocked by the Moon for us. The next one is the big one! April 8th, 2024 is a total eclipse less than a day’s drive away. The path of totality runs from Texas to Maine, just clipping the southeast corner of Michigan. Here in Northern Michigan, nearly 90% of the Sun will be covered by the Moon, so it will get noticeably dark at the peak of the eclipse.

The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EDT, UT – 5 hours). They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Areas on the Earth where the solar eclipse of October 14, 2023 can be seen via animation. The gray area is where the partial eclipse is visible. The dot is the place where the ring of the annular eclipse can be seen. Credit: NASA, A. T. Sinclair.

Areas on the Earth where the solar eclipse of April 8, 2024 can be seen via animation. The gray area is where the partial eclipse is visible. The dot is the place where the totally eclipsed Sun can be seen. Credit: NASA, A. T. Sinclair.

For more information on solar and lunar eclipses past and present, go here, NASA’s Eclipse Website.

10/25/2022 – Ephemeris – This eclipse season starts with a partial solar eclipse, but not for us

“But not for us” means not for Michigan in the United States. This is a script, as always, for a local radio program. Which also mentions the midterm election day, two weeks from now, which coincides with the total lunar eclipse that morning. I’ll have an Ephemeris Extra post before the lunar eclipse, which looks into the next few lunar and solar eclipses visible in Michigan and the United States.

This is Ephemeris for Tuesday, October 25th. Today the Sun will be up for 10 hours and 30 minutes, setting at 6:41, and it will rise tomorrow at 8:12. The Moon is new today, and won’t be visible.

The Moon will be visible in a negative way for some folks at this time. There is a partial solar eclipse in progress now for parts of Europe, Asia and Africa. So that thing blocking the northern part of the Sun for them will be the Moon. Being a partial eclipse means that an eclipse season has started, and we should have a lunar eclipse in about two weeks, when the Moon is full. There sure is, and it’s visible from here. In exactly two weeks, there will be. In the early morning hours of November 8th, Election Day, a total eclipse of the Moon. And if you’re standing outside the polling place waiting for the polls to open at 7 am, and it’s clear, and you have a view to the west, the partially eclipsed Moon will still be visible. That will be the ending partial phase of the eclipse.

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

Map for the area on the Earth where the partial solar eclipse of October 25, 2022, will be visible. Credit: NASA/GSFC, Fred Espenak.

10/21/2022 – Ephemeris – Lots of transient astronomical activity this weekend

This is Bob Moler with Ephemeris for Friday, October 21st. Today the Sun will be up for 10 hours and 41 minutes, setting at 6:48, and it will rise tomorrow at 8:07. The Moon, halfway from last quarter to new, will rise at 4:44 tomorrow morning. | We have several astronomical events happening tonight and over the weekend. The Orionid meteor shower may still be at peak, appearing tonight between 11 pm and moonrise tomorrow morning. Up to 20, and maybe more, meteors per hour may be spotted just prior to moonrise. Tomorrow Venus will be in superior conjunction with the Sun, the passing behind, though not directly behind the Sun, and thus entering the evening sky. It will be a month or so for Venus to separate itself from the Sun’s glare to be spotted in the early evening. Finally, on Sunday Saturn will end its retrograde or westward movement against the stars of Capricornus and resume moving eastward, its normal motion around our sky.

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

The Orionid meteor shower radiant. The radiant rises at 11 p.m., so the meteors will be visible from then into morning twilight. Despite the location of the radiant, the meteors will b e seen all over the sky. However, true Orionids can be traced back to the radiant point. This chart is from another year. This year, bright Mars would be at the top center of the image. Created using Stellarium.

Venus near Superior conjunction through the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) LASCO C2 Coronagraph. The white circle inside the occulting disk is the diameter of the Sun’s photosphere, the disk we see of the Sun in white light. Launched in 1995, SOHO has been in halo orbit around the Sun-Earth L1 Lagrange point ever since.

Saturn stationary animation showing it with and without annotations. The fine, folded line with tick marks is Saturn’s path. The tick marks are at 10-day intervals. Saturn starts out in retrograde motion, heading westward or to the right. On October 23rd, it slows and stops that motion. It begins to head back eastward in its normal prograde motion to the left. Outer planets like Saturn, Jupiter, Mars and the rest exhibit retrograde motion when the Earth in effect passes them on the same side of the Sun. Click on the image to enlarge it slightly. Created using Cartes du Ciel (Sky Charts), LibreOffice Draw, and GIMP.

08/15/2022 – Ephemeris – Saturn moves into the evening sky

This is Ephemeris for Monday, August 15th. Today the Sun will be up for 14 hours and 3 minutes, setting at 8:48, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:46. The Moon, halfway from full to last quarter, will rise at 10:55 this evening.

Yesterday, Saturn was in opposition to the Sun. I’m not implying an argument here. Opposition is when a planet is opposite the Sun in the sky, so it rises around sunset and sets around sunrise. That means Saturn is the closest it can get to us this year. For the record, that’s 836 million miles (1,345 million kilometers). Saturn will first appear tonight in the southeast when it gets dark enough, say around 9:15 to 9:30 pm. It is in the constellation of Aquarius now. It is moving northeastward in our skies, or it would if it weren’t at opposition, and moving backward or retrograde as the Earth is, in effect, lapping Saturn in our eternal race around the Sun. Saturn’s rings appear to slowly get skinnier as the planet moves to an equinox, where its rings, which orbit its equator, will tilt edgewise to the Sun, and the Earth in 2025.

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

Display of the solar system out to Saturn, with added line showing Saturn’s location opposite the Sun from the Earth. This make the Earth nearly in line from the Sun to Saturn. This is the time that Saturn would be closest to the Earth. Credit: my LookingUp app. I wanted to use NASA’s Eyes, but there were too many interplanetary spacecraft near the Earth. The Earth was crowded out by spacecraft labels.

How the appearance of the rings change as Saturn orbits the Sun. Credit: NASA Hubble.

05/30/2022 – Ephemeris – There might be a spectacular meteor shower/storm tonight after midnight!

This is Ephemeris for Memorial Day, Monday, May 30th. Today the Sun will be up for 15 hours and 18 minutes, setting at 9:19, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:00. The Moon is new today, and won’t be visible.

Comet Schwassmann-Wachmann 3, SW3 for short began to breakup in 1995, 27 years ago. Two large chunks of the comet’s nucleus and dozens of smaller pieces have been seen. We expect a vast debris field to be expanding from the remnants of the comet, unseen. Astronomers, calculating what happened to that unseen debris cloud, expect the Earth to run into a part of it around 1 am (EDT, 5 hours UT), give or take, tomorrow morning. Causing, if we’re lucky, a meteor shower or meteor storm. The radiant point from which the meteors seem to come is from between the Big Dipper’s handle and the bright star Arcturus. They will appear all over the sky. I’m crossing my fingers on this one, it could be great, or it could be nothing.

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

Position of the Tau Herculid radiant at 1 am, May 31, 2022. However, meteors will appear all over the sky, but could be traced back to the radiant. These meteors will appear to travel a lot slower than the Perseid meteors of August. Created using Stellarium for the star field and LibreOffice for annotations.

Comet Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 Hubble Space Telescope images from 2006 showing the breakup of the comet. Credit: NASA.

05/27/2022 – Ephemeris – There could be a spectacular meteor display Tuesday early morning, or nothing!

This is Bob Moler with Ephemeris for Friday, May 27th. Today the Sun will be up for 15 hours and 13 minutes, setting at 9:16, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:02. The Moon, 3 days before new, will rise at 5:03 tomorrow morning.

Comet Schwassmann-Wachmann 3, SW3 for short began to breakup in 1995, 27 years ago. Two large chunks of the comet’s nucleus and dozens of smaller pieces have been seen. A vast, unseen debris field is expected to be expanding from the remnants of the comet. Astronomers, calculating what happened to that unseen debris cloud, expect the Earth to run into a part of it around 1 am (EDT, 5 hours UT), give or take, on Tuesday, May 31st (That’s late Memorial Day night). Causing, if we’re lucky, a meteor shower or meteor storm. The radiant point from which the meteors seem to come is from between the Big Dipper’s handle and the bright star Arcturus. They will appear all over the sky. I’m crossing my fingers on this one, it could be great, or it could be nothing.

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

Position of the Tau Herculid radiant at 1 am, May 31, 2022. However, meteors will appear all over the sky, but could be traced back to the radiant. These meteors will appear to travel a lot slower than the Perseid meteors of August. Created using Stellarium for the star field and LibreOffice for annotations.

Comet Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 Hubble Space Telescope images from 2006 showing the breakup of the comet. Credit: NASA.

05/26/2022 – Ephemeris – There may be a spectacular meteor storm Tuesday am or nothing!

This is Ephemeris for Thursday, May 26th. Today the Sun will be up for 15 hours and 11 minutes, setting at 9:16, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:03. The Moon, halfway from last quarter to new, will rise at 4:42 tomorrow morning.

Early risers tomorrow morning should be able to see, if it’s clear, the planet Venus just above and right of the waning crescent Moon. The last of the visible Moon-planet encounters this month. Another event this month may be the Tau Herculid meteor shower. This may be a spectacular meteor shower, or nothing. It would be the result of the breakup of Comet Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 that started back in 1995. SW3, as it’s known for short, has a 5.44 year orbit of the Sun, so we only get a good look at it about every 11 years currently. As the nucleus breaks up, the debris field widens, with time. The comet will pass close to the orbit of the Earth in a few months. The comet’s orbit comes closest to the Earth’s orbit on May 31st. If the debris cloud has widened enough by now, the Earth should intercept it around 1 am our time that morning.

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

Position of the Tau Herculid radiant at 1 am, May 31, 2022. However, meteors will appear all over the sky, but could be traced back to the radiant. These meteors will appear to travel a lot slower than the Perseid meteors of August. The meteor storm, if it occurs, should peak around 1 am. However, there is an uncertainty with the time or if the meteor will show up. Created using Stellarium for the star field and LibreOffice for annotations.

Comet Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 Hubble Space Telescope images from 2006 showing the breakup of the comet. Credit: NASA.

05/13/2022 – Ephemeris – Remember, there is going to be an eclipse of the Moon late Sunday night!

This is Bob Moler with Ephemeris for Friday, May 13th. Today the Sun will be up for 14 hours and 45 minutes, setting at 9:02, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:15. The Moon, 3 days before full, will set at 5:28 tomorrow morning.

There is going to be an eclipse of the Moon running from late Sunday night into the early Monday morning hours. That’s the night of May 15/16. By 10:30 pm, there will appear a noticeable “bite” out of the lower left edge of the Moon as it enters the Earth’s inner shadow, called the umbra. The shadow will creep across the Moon for the next hour. And by 11:30 the Moon is completely immersed in the Earth’s inner shadow. By now, one will notice that the shadow is not completely black. The Moon usually has a dim reddish hue caused by all the simultaneous sunrises and sunsets around the Earth. This is the total phase of the eclipse, which will last until almost 1 am. The Moon will slowly exit the inner shadow by 2 am.

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

The eclipse occurs on the 16th for Universal Time, because the eclipse events take place after 8 pm EDT on the 15th. The Moon travels through the Earth’s shadow from right to left. What are seen are points of contact with the shadow and mid-eclipse. From Five Millennium Canon of Lunar Eclipses (Espenak & Meeus) NASA, with additions.

Contact times are labeled P1, U1, U2, U3, U4, and P4. P2 and P3 are omitted because they are synonymous with U1 and U4, respectively. Times are EDT unless noted:

• P1 – 9:32:07 pm (1:32:07 UT) Enter the penumbra (unseen). By about 10 pm, the duskiness on the left edge of the moon will start to be noticeable. Wearing sunglasses to dim the bright Moon will help show the effect.
• U1 – 10:27:53 pm (2:27:53 UT) Enter the umbra (partial eclipse begins).
• U2 – 11:29:03 pm (3:29:03 UT) Totality begins.
• Mid-eclipse 12:11:28.8 am (4:11:28.8 UT)
• U3 – 12:53:56 am (4:53:56 UT) Totality ends, the egress partial phase begins.
• U4 – 1:55:07 am (5:55:07 UT) Partial phase ends. The Moon’s upper right edge should appear dusky for the next half hour or so.
• P4 – 2:50:48 am (6:50:48 UT) Penumbral phase ends (unseen).

Solar eclipse by the Earth as photographed by Surveyor 3, which had landed on the Moon, April 24, 1967. The Earth was seeing a lunar eclipse at the time. Light seeps into the Earth’s shadow at the Moon’s distance due to atmospheric refraction. The amount of light depends on the atmospheric conditions at the time. Great volcanic eruptions can cause a very dark, nearly invisible, eclipsed Moon. Credit: NASA.

Update 7:30 pm, May 15th

In note for P1 time: Expected actual visibility of penumbral shadow is changed to 10 pm (2 hr UT).