09/22/2022 – Ephemeris – Autumn will begin this evening

This is Ephemeris for Thursday, September 22nd. Today the Sun will be up for 12 hours and 10 minutes, setting at 7:40, and it will rise tomorrow at 7:31. The Moon, 3 days before new, will rise at 4:46 tomorrow morning.

The season of fall is about to, ah well, fall upon us and in a few weeks so will the leaves. At 9:04 this evening (1:04 UT tomorrow) the Sun will cross the celestial equator heading south. The celestial equator is an imaginary line in the sky above the earth’s equator. At that point, the Sun will theoretically set at the North Pole and rise at the South Pole. The day is called the autumnal equinox and the daylight hours today is 12 hours and 10 minutes instead of 12 hours exactly. That’s due to our atmosphere and our definition of sunrise and sunset. The reason for the cooler weather now and the cold weather this winter is that the length of daylight is shortening, and the Sun rides lower in the sky, spreading its heat over a larger area, thus diluting its intensity.

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 Sun’s path through the sky on an equinox day from the Traverse City/Interlochen area in Michigan. The Sun is plotted every 15 minutes. This is a stereographic projection which compresses the image near the zenith and enlarges the image towards the horizon. Note that the Sun rises due east and sets due west. Created using my LookingUp program.

That is not a pumpkin on the head of the motorcyclist. That’s the Sun rising as I’m traveling east on South Airport Road south of Traverse City, MI on the autumnal equinox. This is the east-west section of the road. The Sun is rising over the hills some 6 miles to the east. When the Sun is on the celestial equator, it rises due east and sets due west. Credit: Bob Moler.

Image from the Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) on NOAA’s DSCOVR satellite in halo orbit around the Earth-Sun L-1 point 1 million miles sunward from the Earth on the autumnal equinox of 2016. North America is in the upper right of the globe.

Earth’s position at the solstices and equinoxes. This is an not to scale oblique look at the Earth’s orbit, which is nearly circular. The Earth is actually farthest from the Sun on July 4th. Click on the image to enlarge. Credit: ESO (European Southern Observatory), which explains the captions in German and English.

10/15/2019 – Ephemeris – The celestial Fisher paints the fall colors

Ephemeris for Tuesday, October 15th. Today the Sun will be up for 11 hours even, setting at 6:58, and it will rise tomorrow at 7:59. The Moon, 2 days past full, will rise at 8:14 this evening.

The tree leaves are turning to reds and yellows as we advance into autumn. The native Anishinaabe peoples, whose homeland we share, have a story about how that came to be. Of how a magical weasel-like creature called the Fisher or in the native language, Ojiig, brought summer to the Earth from Skyland. For his trouble he was shot with an arrow in his only vulnerable spot, the tip of his tail. As he fell to Earth the Great Spirit, Manitou caught him and placed him in the sky where we see the Great Bear (Ursa Major) and the Big Dipper. Every autumn late at night we see his tail, the handle of the dipper, swoop down to the ground where his tail paints the leaves with his blood.

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

Addendum

An animation of Fisher brushing his tail along the horizon on autumn nights. Created using Stellarium.

The constellation art is part of the latest versions of Stellarium. Ojibwe (Anishinaabe) constellation art by Annette S Lee and William Wilson from Ojibwe Sky Star Map Constellation Guide, ISBN 978-0-615-98678-4.

See the version of the story I learned:  The story of the Fisher Star.

There are other variations of the story, and other adventures of the Fisher.  Perform an Internet search for: Fisher or Fisher Star or Ojiig.

09/23/2019 – Ephemeris – Fall has fallen upon us

Ephemeris for Monday, September 23rd. Today the Sun will be up for 12 hours and 7 minutes, setting at 7:38, and it will rise tomorrow at 7:32. The Moon, 2 days past last quarter, will rise at 2:01 tomorrow morning.

Fall has, well… fallen upon us and in a few weeks so will the leaves. At 3:49 (7:49 UT) this morning the Sun crossed overhead at the Earth’s equator heading south. At that same time the Sun theoretically set at the north pole and rose at the south pole. The day is called the autumnal equinox and the daylight hours today is 12 hours and 7 minutes instead of 12 hours exactly. That’s due to our atmosphere and our definition of sunrise and sunset. The reason for the cooler weather for us north of the equator now and the cold weather this winter is that the length of daylight is shortening, and the Sun rides lower in the sky, spreading its heat over a larger area, thus diluting its intensity.

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

Addendum

The Sun’s path through the sky on the equinox day from Traverse City, MI. Created using my LookingUp program.

That is not a pumpkin on the head of the motorcyclist. That’s the Sun rising as I’m traveling east on South Airport Road south of Traverse City Mi. on the autumnal equinox. This is the east-west section of the road. The Sun is rising over the hills some 6 miles to the east. Credit: Bob Moler.

11/09/2017 – Ephemeris – Cassiopeia the queen and her husband

Ephemeris for Thursday, November 9th. The Sun will rise at 7:31. It’ll be up for 9 hours and 49 minutes, setting at 5:20. The Moon, 1 day before last quarter, will rise at 10:59 this evening.

The stars of the autumn skies hold forth now, but one prominent autumn constellation never leaves us, here in northern Michigan. Look high in the northeastern sky by 8 p.m. and you can find the W shaped constellation of Cassiopeia the queen. It is opposite the pole star Polaris from the Big Dipper, slinking low in the north-northwest. There’s a dim star that appears above the middle star of the W which turns the W into a very crooked backed chair. Above and left of Cassiopeia is a dim upside down church steeple shaped constellation of Cepheus the king. The Milky Way flows through a corner of Cepheus and Cassiopeia toward the northeastern horizon and through the constellation of Perseus the hero, and the bright star Capella in Auriga the Charioteer.

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

Addendum

Cassiopeia and constellations along the Milky Way in the northeast these autumn evenings. (8 p.m. November 9, 2017). Click on image to enlarge. Created using Stellarium and GIMP.

Ephemeris Extra – Autumn telescopic wonders

This is an updated article I wrote from the October 1998 issue of the Grand Traverse Astronomical Society’ newsletter the Stellar Sentinel

18 years ago Judy, my late wife, and I bought a telescope from Enerdyne. Officially it was Judy’s telescope and is a Celestron 11 inch (280 mm) Star Hopper Dobsonian. After over 20 years of relying on the telescopes at the Lanphier and Rogers observatories, we felt the need again for a personal backyard telescope again. This was also brought home by the appearance of the comets Hyakutake and Hale-Bopp in the 1996 and 1997.

Though large in diameter, the telescope has a focal length of 49.5 inches (1260 mm), much closer to the telescopes I’ve made and used in the past, and a third to a half the diameter of the C14s at the observatories above. So the scope gives bright low power views of galaxies and nebulae. The diameter allows the resolution of some globular clusters. I was also quite pleasantly surprised at the scope’s ability to see detail on Jupiter and Saturn. Jupiter’s Great Red (currently a pale pink) Spot and on Saturn: a cloud band, ring shadows and Cassini’s Division.

Soon after obtaining the telescope I surveyed the dim wonders of the autumn sky beyond the solar system. Here are the results:

Galaxies

• M31, M32 and M110 Better known as the Great Andromeda Galaxy and its companion galaxies, the view is made to order for the smaller telescope. M31’s glowing nucleus spans the eyepiece field. The galaxy is larger than out own and lies at a distance 2.5 million light years. The brightness falls off sharply along the north side of it’s elliptical minor axis. The nearly spherical M32 is seen nearby, while the faint elliptical galaxy M110 is barely visible on the other side of M31. I used to know M110 only as NGC205.  It was added to Messier’s list in 1967, 11 years after I first observed the galaxy.
  A note about The M designations.  They are from a catalog started by French comet hunter Charles Messier (1730-1817) who made a list of fuzzy objects in the sky that could be confused as being comets because they didn’t move against the stars.   He officially discovered or co-discovered a dozen comets.  As can be seen by the inclusion Of M110, it has been extended by other astronomers.
• M33 The Triangulum galaxy is seen nearby off the point Triangulum is about as close as M31, but smaller than M31 with a small nucleus and large faint disk. It has a very low surface brightness and requires a dark sky.
• M74 Is located in Pisces near Aries. It is a face-on galaxy like M33 but a lot smaller and fainter. I saw no central condensation.
• M77 is a different story, a galaxy with a bright nucleus. M77 is located is Cetus located just below the head of the monster or tail of the whale, however you see him.

Globular star clusters

• M15 is a globular cluster found by extending the nose of Pegasus. The 11 inch telescope could resolve the cluster’s outer stars. It was a smaller, dimmer version of M13, the grand globular in Hercules.
• M2 is a more distant globular located due south of M15 and at an equal declination as (α)Alpha Aquarii or Sadal Melik. It earns its inclusion as Messier’s object number 2, for it looks for all the world like a tailless comet. On a second look at it the 11 inch could resolve a few stars.
• M30 seems the same size as M2 and located farther south just right of the star (ζ)Zeta Capricorni. However the 11 inch can resolve a handful of its brighter stars.

As we move outward from the galactic center in Sagittarius the globular clusters thin out dramatically. The next Messier globular is located in Lepus the hare below Orion a winter constellation.

Open or galactic clusters

• M34 is a large but sparse open or galactic star cluster located just west of the star Algol in Perseus.
• M103 is a faint triangular-shaped cluster located just east of the star (δ)Delta Casseopeiae. The triangular arrangement of its stars reminds me of a smaller version of the Beehive Cluster (M44) in Cancer.
• M52 is a faint but populous cluster located between Cassiopeia and Cepheus.
• The Double Cluster is a great view in a low power eyepiece. The two clusters do not have Messier designations. But they do have NGC numbers: 869 and 884. NGC is the “New General Catalog” and is not so new. It’s over 100 years old.
• M45 or the Pleiades is best seen in a pair of binoculars. Also known as the Seven Sisters, the Pleiades is close as star clusters go at 400 light years.
• Melotte 25 or Collinder 50:  The Hyades, the face of Taurus the Bull, is the closest star cluster of all at about 153 light years. Sparse and big, it is almost too large to view in a pair of binoculars. The Hyades is the key to finding distances to the ends of the universe. It is close enough to get good parallax data for triangulation. Its many stars of known brightness and distance can be matched to other star clusters beyond the reach of the parallax method to ascertain their distances.

M76 is the only planetary nebula in our group. Called the Little Dumbbell Nebula or the Barbell Nebula, it has a shape of one of those Milk Bone dog biscuits.

A star chart covering the autumn constellations and the objects described in this article. In Andromeda (And) the overprinted captions are for M31 and M32. The Double Cluster is not shown, not being a Messier object. It’s approximately half way between the northernmost star of Perseus (Per) and M103 in Cassiopeia (Cas). The article doesn’t cover the Messier objects M35, 26, 37 ,38, 42/3 and 78. Which I may do for winter. The star chart was created using the author’s program LookingUp.

10/24/2016 – Ephemeris – Fomalhaut, the loneliest star in the sky

Ephemeris for Monday, October 24th.  The Sun will rise at 8:10.  It’ll be up for 10 hours and 31 minutes, setting at 6:42.  The Moon, 2 days past last quarter, will rise at 3:01 tomorrow morning.

There’s a bright star that appears for only seven and a half hours on autumn evenings.  It’s appearance, low in the south at 10 p.m., is a clear indication of the autumn season.  The star’s name is Fomalhaut, which means fish’s mouth.  That’s fitting because it’s in the constellation of Piscis Austrinus, the southern fish.  At our latitude it’s kind of the fish that got away, because Fomalhaut appears to be quite alone low in the sky.  The dimness of the constellation’s other stars and location close to the horizon make the faint stars hard to spot. The earth’s thick atmosphere near the horizon reduces their brightness by a factor of two or more, so Fomalhaut, one of the brightest stars in the sky, keeps a lonely vigil in the south.

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

Addendum

Aquarius and Fomalhaut as visualized by Stellarium. 

09/05/2016 – Ephemeris – Anticipating summer’s end

Ephemeris for Labor Day, Monday, September 5th.  The Sun will rise at 7:10.  It’ll be up for 13 hours and 0 minutes, setting at 8:11.  The Moon, half way from new to first quarter, will set at 10:24 this evening.

Even though we have 17 more days officially, of summer, according to the actual seasons,  today seems like it, the end of summer.  Summer seems to be defined or confined to between the time that the kids get out of school, to Labor Day, after which the kids go back to school.  Schools in other locales have been back for almost two weeks now.  As far as the summer sky goes, the summer Milky Way will stick around until October, until we lose the Teapot of Sagittarius over the southwestern horizon.  The Summer Triangle of bright summer stars, won’t leave the sky until December, as they move ever westward.  However in the east the autumn stars are even now rising, pushing the Milky Way to the west.

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

Addendum

The transitional skies of 10 p.m. tonight 9/5/2016. Created using Stellarium.