The planets Venus and Jupiter will make a close approach, passing within a mere 4.0 arcminutes of each other.
From Jacksonville , the pair will be difficult to observe as they will appear no higher than 9° above the horizon. They will become visible at around 20:10 (EST), 9° above your western horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. They will then sink towards the horizon, setting 1 hour and 5 minutes after the Sun at 20:59.
Venus will be at mag -3.9; and Jupiter will be at mag -1.7. Both objects will lie in the constellation Virgo.
They 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.
At around the same time, the pair will also share the same right ascension – called a conjunction.
A graph of the angular separation between Venus and Jupiter 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 |
| Venus | 11h51m20s | 2°12'N | Virgo | -3.9 | 10"7 |
| Jupiter | 11h51m10s | 2°09'N | Virgo | -1.7 | 30"2 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 22° from the Sun, which is in Leo at this time of year.
The sky on 27 Aug 2016
| The sky on 27 August 2016 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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16% 25 days old |
All times shown in EDT.
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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 May 2016 | – Jupiter ends retrograde motion |
| 06 Feb 2017 | – Jupiter enters retrograde motion |
| 07 Apr 2017 | – Jupiter at opposition |
| 09 Jun 2017 | – 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.