Venus and Jupiter will share the same right ascension, with Venus passing 2°03' to the south 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 become visible at around 16:36 (EDT), 18° above your south-western horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. They will then sink towards the horizon, setting 2 hours and 43 minutes after the Sun at 19:00.
Venus will be at mag -4.1, and Jupiter at mag -2.0, both in the constellation Sagittarius.
The pair will be too widely separated to fit within the field of view of a telescope, but will 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 | 18h58m40s | 25°00'S | Sagittarius | -4.1 | 15"1 |
| Jupiter | 18h58m40s | 22°57'S | Sagittarius | -2.0 | 32"7 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 40° from the Sun, which is in Scorpius at this time of year.
The sky on 1 May 2024
| The sky on 1 May 2024 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
43% 23 days old |
All times shown in EDT.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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
| 29 Aug 1984 | – Jupiter ends retrograde motion |
| 04 Jun 1985 | – Jupiter enters retrograde motion |
| 04 Aug 1985 | – Jupiter at opposition |
| 03 Oct 1985 | – 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.