Venus and Jupiter will share the same right ascension, with Venus passing 23' to the south of Jupiter.

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

From Fairfield , the pair will become visible at around 20:50 (EDT), 21° above your western horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. They will then sink towards the horizon, setting 2 hours and 20 minutes after the Sun at 22:49.

Venus will be at mag -4.4, and Jupiter at mag -1.8, both in the constellation Leo.

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:

The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 42° from the Sun, which is in Gemini at this time of year.

The sky on 23 Apr 2024

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

Image credit

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

Share