Conjunction of Jupiter and Uranus

Dominic Ford, Editor
From the Conjunctions feed


Jupiter and Uranus will share the same right ascension, with Jupiter passing 3'26" to the south of Uranus.

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

From Los Angeles , the pair will be visible in the evening sky, becoming accessible around 18:38 (PDT), 52° above your eastern horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. They will then reach their highest point in the sky at 21:19, 78° above your southern horizon. They will continue to be observable until around 02:35, when they sink below 20° above your western horizon.

Jupiter will be at mag -2.5, and Uranus at mag 5.5, both in the constellation Gemini.

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

A graph of the angular separation between Jupiter and Uranus 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
Jupiter 07h27m20s 22°21'N Gemini -2.5 43"2
Uranus 07h27m20s 22°25'N Gemini 5.5 3"9

The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 139° from the Sun, which is in Aquarius at this time of year.

The sky on 7 Jul 2024

The sky on 7 July 2024
Sunrise
05:45
Sunset
20:07
Twilight ends
21:50
Twilight begins
04:02


Waxing Crescent

4%

2 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 07:33 14:31 21:30
Venus 06:28 13:35 20:43
Moon 07:14 14:38 21:52
Mars 02:10 09:01 15:52
Jupiter 03:15 10:19 17:23
Saturn 23:26 05:11 10:57
All times shown in PDT.

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

11 Jan 2038  –  Uranus at opposition
27 Mar 2038  –  Uranus ends retrograde motion
03 Nov 2038  –  Uranus enters retrograde motion
16 Jan 2039  –  Uranus at opposition

Image credit

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

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