Archive
02/24/2020 – Ephemeris – Conflict in the skies: Orion vs. Taurus
Ephemeris for Monday, February 24th. Today the Sun will be up for 10 hours and 53 minutes, setting at 6:23, and it will rise tomorrow at 7:27. The Moon, 1 day past new, will set at 7:26 this evening.
The classical constellation figures of Orion the hunter and Taurus the bull appear to be interacting in the sky. Orion is in the south at 9 p.m. An angry Taurus, a bit above him in the southwest, appears to be charging at Orion who appears to be facing him with lion skin shield and an upraised club. Orion’s two hunting dogs, canes major and minor, appear to be unconcerned. The face of Taurus the bull is a letter V shape of faint stars with a bright reddish star at the upper left tip of the V called Aldebaran the bull’s angry bloodshot eye. There’s no mythological story that goes with this. Both Orion and Taurus have their own myths associated with them separate from their apparent clash in the heavens.
The times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Addendum
Conflict in the skis: Taurus is charging Orion. Seen at 9 p.m. in late February. Created using Stellarium and the dimming of Betelgeuse in GIMP.
12/16/2019 – Ephemeris – Taurus Treasures
Ephemeris for Monday, December 16th. Today the Sun will be up for 8 hours and 49 minutes, setting at 5:03, and it will rise tomorrow at 8:14. The Moon, 3 days before last quarter, will rise at 9:59 this evening.
Rising in the east-southeast now is the bright star Aldebaran an orange star that’s at one end of the sideways letter V of stars that is the head of Taurus the bull. Above it is the jewel-like Pleiades or Seven Sisters star cluster. There’s more to Taurus, like it’s freakishly long horns and front part of its body. But you can say you’ve seem Taurus, if you can spot his face. That V of stars is actually a star cluster called the Hyades, the closest to the Earth, and in Greek Myth were the half-sisters of the Pleiades, also fathered by the god Atlas. Both the Hyades and Pleiades are being pursued by Orion, which is below it. He isn’t the only one following the Pleiades, the name Aldebaran means “The Follower”.
The times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Addendum
An animation showing the Hyades, Taurus, Orion and the Pleiades. Click on the image to enlarge. Created using Stellarium and GIMP.
The Pleiades (right) and the Hyades (left) in this photograph I took January 4, 2016.
10/29/2019 – Ephemeris – Finding the Pleiades or Seven Sisters
Ephemeris for Tuesday, October 29th. Today the Sun will be up for 10 hours and 19 minutes, setting at 6:36, and it will rise tomorrow at 8:17. The Moon, 2 days past new, will set at 7:57 this evening.
A marvelous member of the autumn skies can be found low in the east northeast after 9 in the evening. It is the famous star cluster called the Pleiades or the Seven Sisters. I might also add the ‘Tiny Dipper’. Many people can spot a tiny dipper shape in its six or seven stars, and mistake it for the Little Dipper. When I was nearsighted, though corrected, I never had been able to see more than a few stars and a bit of fuzz. However with binoculars, even I can see over a hundred stars appear along with the dipper shape of the brightest. The fuzz I saw was unresolved stars, but in photographs the Pleiades actually contain wisps of the gas they are passing through currently. In Greek mythology the sisters were daughters of the god Atlas.
The times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Addendum
Finding the Pleiades animation for 9 p.m. October 29, 2019. The Pleiades is surrounded by constellations I’ve described earlier this year and one yet to be described, Taurus the bull of which the cluster is a part. The V of stars near the horizon is Taurus’ head and is another star cluster, the Hyades, the half sisters to the Pleiades. Created using Stellarium and GIMP.
The Pleiades, about what you’d see in binoculars, though not as brilliant. One of my old photographs. With my 11 inch f/4.5 Dobsonian using a 40mm eyepiece that gives a field of view that encompasses the Pleiades, all I can say is Wow!
The Greek Pleiades a painting by Elihu Vedder in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. Public Domain.
01/29/2019 – Ephemeris – The rabbit that got away
Ephemeris for Tuesday, January 29th. Today the Sun will be up for 9 hours and 41 minutes, setting at 5:46, and it will rise tomorrow at 8:04. The Moon, 2 days past last quarter, will rise at 3:55 tomorrow morning.
Orion, the central winter constellation is seen in the south at 9 p.m. He is a hunter, but he’s preoccupied with the charge of Taurus the bull from the upper right. At Orion’s feet, and unnoticed by him is the small constellation of Lepus the hare. It’s very hard to see a rabbit in its eight dim stars: however, I do see a rabbit’s head ears and shoulders. A misshapen box is the head and face of this critter facing to the left. His ears extend upwards from the upper right star of the box, and the bend forward a bit. Two stars to the right of the box and a bit farther apart hint at the front part of the body. In Lepus telescopes can find M79, a distant globular star cluster, one of the few of these compact star clusters visible in the winter sky.
Addendum
An animation showing the stars, constellations and artwork of Lepus, Orion and Taurus. Created using Stellarium and GIMP.
My view of Lepus the hare. Star field from Cartes du Ciel. Desert Cottontail drawing from Arizona-Senora Desert Museum website. Superimposed with GIMP.
01/24/2019 – Ephemeris – Taurus the bull
Ephemeris for Thursday, January 24th. Today the Sun will be up for 9 hours and 29 minutes, setting at 5:40, and it will rise tomorrow at 8:09. The Moon, half way from full to last quarter, will rise at 10:14 this evening.
Midway up the sky in the southeast at 8 p.m. is the constellation of the giant hunter Orion. Above him, to the right is Taurus the bull. His face is a letter V shape of stars lying on its side, the star cluster Hyades, with the bright orange-red star Aldebaran at one tip of the V as its angry blood-shot eye, but actually about half way between us and the cluster. Orion is depicted in the sky facing, with club in one hand and a shield in the other, the charging Taurus. The Pleiades star cluster is in his shoulder. Taurus in Greek mythology was the form the god Zeus when he carried off the maiden Europa. Europa’s still with him as the intriguing satellite orbiting Zeus’ Roman equivalent the planet Jupiter.
The times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Addendum
Taurus and Europa at 8 p.m. January 24, 2019. Created using Stellarium.
The Rape of Europa by Titian. According to the story Zeus as a bull abducted Europa and swam to Crete, where she became the first queen of that island, and bore him three sons. Other paintings of this subject are by Rembrandt and de Troy. This painting belongs to the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum in Boston, MA. Click on the image to enlarge.
Jupiter’s satellite Europa, slightly smaller than the Earth’s moon, has a fresh ice surface with very little cratering. The ice floats on a deep water ocean supposedly containing more water than all the Earth’s oceans. Click on the image to enlarge. This is a place NASA will send a spacecraft to look for the chemistry of life. Credit NASA/JPL, Ted Stryk.
11/23/2018 – Ephemeris – The Moon and Aldebaran
Ephemeris for Friday, November 23rd. The Sun will rise at 7:50. It’ll be up for 9 hours and 17 minutes, setting at 5:07. The Moon, at full today, will rise at 5:55 this evening.
Tonight’s full Moon will be accompanied by the bright star Aldebaran, the angry red eye of the constellation Taurus the Bull. Earlier this year we had the last of nearly two years of the Moon every month passing in front of Aldebaran. The tilt of the Moon’s orbit with respect to the Earth’s own orbit of the Sun slides slowly westward with time, so The Moon won’t pass in front of Aldebaran for those of us on Earth again until 2033. This sliding of the Moon’s orbit is called regression of the nodes. A node is where the Moon’s orbital plane crosses the Earth’s. These are places eclipses of the Sun and Moon occur if lined up with the full or new moons. Why regression? The nodal points are moving westward, backward of most motions in the solar system.
The times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Addendum
11/12/2018 – Ephemeris – Orion is rising
Ephemeris for Veterans Day Observed, Monday, November 12th. The Sun will rise at 7:35. It’ll be up for 9 hours and 41 minutes, setting at 5:17. The Moon, 3 days before first quarter, will set at 9:25 this evening.
Just after the Moon sets tonight winter’s most dazzling constellation will be rising, Orion the hunter of Greek myth. The stars of his torso are in a rectangle leaning to the left. Orion’s belt of three stars in a straight line in the center of the rectangle is nearly vertical. The Anishinaabe peoples whose region we live in see the constellation of the Wintermaker rather than Orion. It uses Orion’s torso and belt stars, but his arms are spread wide from Aldebaran in the face of Taurus the bull to the west to Procyon in Canis Minor, which won’t rise until 11 p.m. to the east. The Wintermaker’s arms are wide enough to embrace the entire winter sky. Its name in Anishinaabemowin, which is Biboonikeonini, means “North Wind”.
The times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
