Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2022 January 5

A Year of Sunrises

Image Credit & Copyright: Luca Vanzella

Explanation: Does the Sun always rise in the same direction? No. As the months change, the direction toward the rising Sun changes, too. The featured image shows the direction of sunrise every month during 2021 as seen from the city of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The camera in the image is always facing due east, with north toward the left and south toward the right. As shown in an accompanying video, the top image was taken in 2020 December, while the bottom image was captured in 2021 December, making 13 images in total. Although the Sun always rises in the east in general, it rises furthest to the south of east on the December solstice, and furthest north of east on the June solstice. In many countries, the December Solstice is considered an official change in season: for example the first day of winter in the North. Solar heating and stored energy in the Earth’s surface and atmosphere are near their lowest during winter, making the winter season the coldest of the year.

Status Updates: Deploying the James Webb Space Telescope

January 5, 2022 Daily Correspondence Digest for the Northern Hemisphere’s Moon Phase and Planetary Positions

You can use this link to go forward or backward in time for Moon phase information. If you are curious you can even find out what phase the Moon was in when you or anyone else, you know was on the date the person was born.

From Moongiant.com

The Moon’s current phase for today and tonight is a Waxing Crescent Phase. A Waxing Crescent is the first Phase after the New Moon and is a great time to see the features of the moon’s surface. During this phase the Moon can be seen in the wester sky after the sun dips below the horizon at sunset. The moon is close to the sun in the sky and mostly dark except for the right edge of the moon which becomes brighter as the days get closer to the next phase which is a First Quarter with a 50% illumination.

Visit the January 2022 Moon Phases Calendar to see all the daily moon phase for this month.

Today’s Waxing Crescent Phase

The Waxing Crescent on January 5 has an illumination of 10%. This is the percentage of the Moon illuminated by the Sun. The illumination is constantly changing and can vary up to 10% a day. On January 5 the Moon is 3.09 days old. This refers to how many days it has been since the last New Moon. It takes 29.53 days for the Moon to orbit the Earth and go through the lunar cycle of all 8 Moon phases.

The 8 Lunar Phases

There are 8 lunar phases the Moon goes through in its 29.53 days lunar cycle. The 4 major Moon phases are Full Moon, New Moon, First Quarter and Last Quarter. Between these major phases, there are 4 minor ones: the Waxing Crescent, Waxing Gibbous, Waning Gibbous and Waning Crescent. For more info on the Moon Cycle and on each phase check out Wikipedia Lunar Phase page.

Phase Details

Phase: Waxing Crescent
Illumination: 10%
Moon Age: 3.09 days
Moon Angle: 0.53
Moon Distance: 373,892.33 km
Sun Angle: 0.54
Sun Distance: 147,099,923.16 km

Useful Moon Resources

Check the weather before a night of Moon gazing at weather.com

For a list of all the current meteor showers visit American Meteor Society

The time for the Custom Planetary Positions has changed to 3:00 PM all local times. This is so I can post all time zones for the same date

If you need to calculate the planetary positions for a specific use and time, click on this link

Currentplanetarypositions.com

To figure out GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) to your local time use this link

For Your Local Time and Date

Northwestern Hemisphere

The time for this Custom Planetary Positions is from the local time in Los Angeles, California, USA

January 05, 2022
11:00 pm GMT 3:00 PM PST
Zodiac: Tropical (Standard Western)

Sun:15 Capricorn 35
Moon:29 Aquarius 15
Mercury:04 Aquarius 40
Venus:20 Capricorn 35 Rx
Mars:16 Sagittarius 38
Jupiter:01 Pisces 32
Saturn:12 Aquarius 27
Uranus:10 Taurus 53 Rx
Neptune:20 Pisces 46
Pluto:26 Capricorn 06
True Lunar Node:00 Gemini 45 Rx
Mean Lunar Node:29 Taurus 16 Rx

Lilith (Black Moon):19 Gemini 01

Chiron:08 Aries 34
Ceres:28 Taurus 14 Rx
Pallas:17 Pisces 44
Juno:19 Capricorn 19
Vesta:27 Sagittarius 11
Eris:23 Aries 41 Rx

Fire:4

Earth:7
Air:5
Water:3

Cardinal:6
Fixed:6
Mutable:7

Obliquity of the Nine Planets

Northern Hemisphere

The time for this Custom Planetary Positions is from the local time in Chicago, Illinois, USA

January 05, 2022
09:00 pm GMT 3:00 PM CST
Zodiac: Tropical (Standard Western)

Sun:15 Capricorn 30
Moon:28 Aquarius 05
Mercury:04 Aquarius 35
Venus:20 Capricorn 38 Rx
Mars:16 Sagittarius 34
Jupiter:01 Pisces 31
Saturn:12 Aquarius 26
Uranus:10 Taurus 53 Rx
Neptune:20 Pisces 46
Pluto:26 Capricorn 06
True Lunar Node:00 Gemini 45 Rx
Mean Lunar Node:29 Taurus 16 Rx
Lilith (Black Moon):19 Gemini 00
Chiron:08 Aries 34
Ceres:28 Taurus 15 Rx
Pallas:17 Pisces 43
Juno:19 Capricorn 17
Vesta:27 Sagittarius 09

Eris:23 Aries 41 Rx

Fire:4
Earth:7
Air:5
Water:3

Cardinal:6
Fixed:6
Mutable:7

Obliquity of the Nine Planets

Northeastern Hemisphere

The time for this Custom Planetary Positions is from the local time in Frankfurt, Germany, Europe

5 January 2022
02:00 pm GMT 3:00 PM CEST
Zodiac: Tropical (Standard Western)

Sun:15 Capricorn 12
Moon:23 Aquarius 56
Mercury:04 Aquarius 14
Venus:20 Capricorn 48 Rx
Mars:16 Sagittarius 22
Jupiter:01 Pisces 27
Saturn:12 Aquarius 24
Uranus:10 Taurus 54 Rx
Neptune:20 Pisces 45
Pluto:26 Capricorn 05
True Lunar Node:00 Gemini 47 Rx
Mean Lunar Node:29 Taurus 17 Rx
Lilith (Black Moon):18 Gemini 58
Chiron:08 Aries 34
Ceres:28 Taurus 16 Rx
Pallas:17 Pisces 38
Juno:19 Capricorn 10
Vesta:26 Sagittarius 59

Eris:23 Aries 41 Rx

Fire:4

Earth:7
Air:5
Water:3

Cardinal:6
Fixed:6
Mutable:7

Short List of Wednesday’s Witchcraft/Magickal Correspondences

Information About the Armanen Runes

The Armanen rune set, like other sets, has a difficult history to pin-point where and when it was established. Some will say that this set was originally developed by Guido List, while others will tell you that List followed the previous works of a scholar named Johannes Bureus. However, either way you look at it List’s work varies enough from previous scholar’s work to make the Armanen rune set one worth having a look at.

Gudio List (1848-1919) was the founder of a school of German rune work. The contributions to the study and preservation of the runes may be one of the reasons that we know as much about the runes as we do today. That’s not to say that all that List had taught was to be held as truth. In fact List claimed that his Armanen rune set was not only older than the Elder Futhark but …

Click for more information about the Armanen Runes from therunesite.com

5 January Daily Correspondence Digest for the Southern Hemisphere’s Moon Phase and Planetary Positions

You can use this link to go forward or backward in time for Moon phase information. If you are curious, you can even find out what phase the Moon was in when you or anyone else, you know was on the date the person was born.