Conjunction of Venus and Jupiter

Dominic Ford, Editor
From the Conjunctions feed


Venus and Jupiter will share the same right ascension, with Venus passing 20' to the north of Jupiter.

At around the same time, the two objects will also make a close approach, technically called an appulse.

From Cambridge , the pair will be difficult to observe as they will appear no higher than 9° above the horizon. They will be visible in the dawn sky, rising at 05:22 (EDT) – 1 hour and 28 minutes before the Sun – and reaching an altitude of 9° above the south-eastern horizon before fading from view as dawn breaks at around 06:32.

Venus will be at mag -4.0, and Jupiter at mag -1.9, both in the constellation Sagittarius.

The pair will be close enough to fit within the field of view of a telescope, but will also be visible to the naked eye or through a pair of binoculars.

A graph of the angular separation between Venus and Jupiter around the time of closest approach is available here.

The positions of the two objects at the moment of conjunction will be as follows:

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Magnitude Angular Size
Venus 19h19m20s 21°53'S Sagittarius -4.0 11"8
Jupiter 19h19m20s 22°13'S Sagittarius -1.9 31"9

The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 29° from the Sun, which is in Capricornus at this time of year.

The sky on 6 Feb 2032

The sky on 6 February 2032
Sunrise
06:50
Sunset
17:02
Twilight ends
18:38
Twilight begins
05:14


Waning Crescent

18%

25 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 07:11 12:12 17:12
Venus 05:19 09:56 14:33
Moon 02:22 07:18 12:12
Mars 08:36 14:37 20:37
Jupiter 05:22 09:58 14:34
Saturn 12:09 19:36 03:02
All times shown in EST.

Source

The circumstances of this event were computed using the DE430 planetary ephemeris published by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

This event was automatically generated by searching the ephemeris for planetary alignments which are of interest to amateur astronomers, and the text above was generated based on an estimate of your location.

Related news

16 Aug 2031  –  Jupiter ends retrograde motion
19 May 2032  –  Jupiter enters retrograde motion
19 Jul 2032  –  Jupiter at opposition
17 Sep 2032  –  Jupiter ends retrograde motion

Image credit

The Moon in conjunction with Venus and Jupiter, with the Very Large Telescope in the foreground. Image © Y. Beletsky, ESO, 2009.

Share