Venus & Jupiter

It’s cold by LA standards (44º headed toward a low of about 37º – note that there are plenty of places up in the mountains which get much lower routinely because they can go up to over 10,000′) but the winds were down and the skies were clear (at least to the west, which is all that counts for this) so it was time for more pictures of the conjunction.

Jupiter’s on the top, Venus on the bottom.

They’re getting much closer together – compare to the pictures from four days ago.

With the 300mm lens I can’t QUITE get the focus sharp enough to see the planets as pinpoints and in turn see the Galilean moons near Jupiter. BUT, if you blow this picture up to full size you can see a dot just below Jupiter and another just at the top (more of a bump, just touching) which are Ganymede and Europa respectively.

Four days ago there was a crescent moon there. It’s moved on and is almost overhead, and about a quarter full. (Click on the photo to enlarge it to full sized, some nice detail there.)

As seen against the background stars, Venus is moving up and Jupiter is moving down. There’s nothing astronomically significant about a conjunction like this, it’s just a coincidence that happens periodically that the planets appear to be near each other from our position.

But it’s very pretty. They’ll be their closest on March 1st, four days from now. (I’m sure we’ll have more clouds between now and then.)

You should go see it if you can, it’s incredibly simple, a naked eye event. Find a cloudless evening about 45 minutes to an hour after sunset, look to the west. There they are!

Go admire the universe!