| MadSci Network: Astronomy |
Mike, to answer your question I used an MS-DOS program "Dance of the Planets" from ARC Software, which I've always enjoyed for its accuracy.
As to the question of when "right now" is, I selected midnight Pacific Time on Thansgiving Day 1999 (1999-11-25).
Here's Halley's position as seen looking "down" on our Solar System; with
the Sun and South Celestial Pole in the center of the image. The horizontal
line going off to the right points to the Vernal Equinox. Halley's orbit is
the small diagonal ellipse pointing up and left from the center. Halley's
current position is indicated by the label "1986III", its designator for
its most recent perihelion passage.
To get a better sense of Halley's position in three dimensions, here's two
more orthogonal views, one looking parallel to the plane of the ecliptic:
And another looking towards the Autumnal Equinox:
Finally, here's where Halley appears to be in the sky as viewed from Earth,
along with a dialog box showing its distance from Earth and Sun in AU, and
it's celestial and local (for San Diego) coordinates:
Try the links in the MadSci Library for more information on Astronomy.