The planets Jupiter and Uranus will make a close approach, passing within a mere 31.1 arcminutes of each other.
From Cambridge , the pair will become visible at around 17:37 (EST), 43° above your southern horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. They will then sink towards the horizon, setting at 22:33.
Jupiter will be at mag -2.3; and Uranus will be at mag 5.9. Both objects will lie in the constellation Pisces.
They will be a little too widely separated to fit comfortably within the field of view of a telescope, but will be visible through a pair of binoculars.
At around the same time, the pair will also share the same right ascension – called a conjunction.
A graph of the angular separation between Jupiter and Uranus around the time of closest approach is available here.
The positions of the pair at the moment of closest approach will be as follows:
Object | Right Ascension | Declination | Constellation | Magnitude | Angular Size |
Jupiter | 23h50m30s | 2°22'S | Pisces | -2.3 | 37"4 |
Uranus | 23h49m40s | 1°54'S | Pisces | 5.9 | 3"4 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 73° from the Sun, which is in Sagittarius at this time of year.
The sky on 29 Nov 2024
The sky on 29 November 2024 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
0% 28 days old |
All times shown in EST.
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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.
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09 Jul 2011 | – Uranus enters retrograde motion |
25 Sep 2011 | – Uranus at opposition |
10 Dec 2011 | – Uranus 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.