Jupiter and Saturn will share the same right ascension, with Jupiter passing 15' to the north of Saturn.
At around the same time, the two objects will also make a close approach, technically called an appulse.
From Cambridge however, the pair will not be observable – they will reach their highest point in the sky during daytime and will be no higher than 10° above the horizon at dusk.
Jupiter will be at mag -2.0, and Saturn at mag 0.6, both in the constellation Capricornus.
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 Jupiter and Saturn 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 | 21h11m40s | 16°55'S | Capricornus | -2.0 | 32"4 |
| Saturn | 21h11m40s | 17°10'S | Capricornus | 0.6 | 15"3 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 22° from the Sun, which is in Sagittarius at this time of year.
The sky on 4 Dec 2024
| The sky on 4 December 2024 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
18% 3 days old |
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
| 15 Oct 2139 | – Saturn ends retrograde motion |
| 08 Jun 2140 | – Saturn enters retrograde motion |
| 18 Aug 2140 | – Saturn at opposition |
| 26 Oct 2140 | – Saturn 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.