The night sky on the night of the premiere of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony — 7 May 1824
On 7 May 1824 Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, with its choral finale on Schiller's 'Ode to Joy', was first performed at the Kärntnertortheater in Vienna. Beethoven, by then almost completely deaf, stood on stage beside the conductor; at the end the contralto Caroline Unger turned him round so he could see the audience's applause.
The sky over Kärntnertortheater, Vienna, Austria
This is the real sky above Kärntnertortheater, Vienna, Austria (48.20°N, 16.37°E) on 7 May 1824 at 21:00 Vienna local mean time (UTC+1:05) that night (1824-05-07 19:55 UTC). The Sun was 14° below the horizon: twilight was fading and the stars were coming out. The Moon (waxing gibbous, 69% lit) was 42° up in the south-west. Planets above the horizon: Jupiter (24° in the west), Mars (44° in the south) and Mercury (5° in the north-west). Brightest named stars up: Arcturus, Vega, Capella, Procyon and Spica.
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