© NASA/Cassini

Jupiter at opposition

Dominic Ford, Editor
From the Outer Planets feed

Objects: Jupiter
Please wait
Loading 0/4
Click and drag to rotate
Mouse wheel to zoom in/out
Touch with mouse to dismiss
The sky at

Jupiter will reach opposition, when it lies opposite to the Sun in the sky. Lying in the constellation Virgo, it will be visible for much of the night, reaching its highest point in the sky around midnight local time.

From Ashburn, it will be visible between 20:16 and 06:15. It will become accessible at around 20:16, when it rises to an altitude of 7° above your eastern horizon. It will reach its highest point in the sky at 01:16, 45° above your southern horizon. It will become inaccessible at around 06:15 when it sinks below 7° above your western horizon.

Begin typing the name of a town near to you, and then select the town from the list of options which appear below.

2017 apparition of Jupiter

06 Feb 2017 – Jupiter enters retrograde motion
07 Apr 2017 – Jupiter at opposition
08 Apr 2017 – Jupiter at perigee
09 Jun 2017 – Jupiter ends retrograde motion

A close approach to the Earth

At around the same time that Jupiter passes opposition, it also makes its closest approach to the Earth – termed its perigee – making it appear at its brightest and largest.

This happens because when Jupiter lies opposite to the Sun in the sky, the Earth passes between Jupiter and the Sun. The solar system is lined up with Jupiter and the Earth on the same side of the Sun, as shown by the configuration labelled perigee in the diagram below:


When a planet is at opposition, the solar system is aligned such that the planet lies on the same side of the Sun as the Earth. At this time, the planet makes its perigee, or closest approach to the Earth. Not drawn to scale.

The panels below show a comparison of the apparent size of Jupiter when seen at opposition in 2017, and when it is most distant from the Earth at solar conjunction.

Jupiter
Jupiter at 2017 opposition
Jupiter
Jupiter at solar conjunction

A comparison of the size of Jupiter as seen at 2017 opposition and at solar conjunction.

In practice, however, Jupiter orbits much further out in the solar system than the Earth – at an average distance from the Sun of 5.20 times that of the Earth, and so its angular size does not vary much as it cycles between opposition and solar conjunction.

Observing Jupiter

At opposition, Jupiter is visible for much of the night. When it lies opposite to the Sun in the sky, this means that it rises at around the time the Sun sets, and it sets at around the time the Sun rises. It reaches its highest point in the sky at around midnight local time.

But even when it is at its closest point to the Earth, it is not possible to distinguish it as more than a star-like point of light with the naked eye, though a good pair of binoculars is sufficient to reveal it as a disk of light with accompanying system of moons.

A chart of the path of Jupiter across the sky in 2017 can be found here, and a chart of its rising and setting times here.

At the moment of opposition, Jupiter will lie at a distance of 4.46 AU, and its disk will measure 43.3 arcsec in diameter, shining at magnitude -2.5. Its celestial coordinates at the moment it passes opposition will be:

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Magnitude Angular Size
Jupiter 13h08m50s 5°36'S Virgo -2.5 43.3"

The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.

Over the weeks following its opposition, Jupiter will reach its highest point in the sky four minutes earlier each night, gradually receding from the pre-dawn morning sky while remaining visible in the evening sky for a few months.

The sky on 7 Apr 2017

The sky on 7 April 2017
Sunrise
06:43
Sunset
19:39
Twilight ends
21:12
Twilight begins
05:10

10-day old moon
Waxing Gibbous

91%

10 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 07:12 14:08 21:05
Venus 05:29 11:47 18:06
Moon 16:15 22:58 05:33
Mars 08:10 15:15 22:20
Jupiter 19:31 01:16 07:00
Saturn 01:09 05:55 10:42
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

07 Apr 2017  –  Jupiter at opposition
09 Jun 2017  –  Jupiter ends retrograde motion
08 Mar 2018  –  Jupiter enters retrograde motion
08 May 2018  –  Jupiter at opposition

Image credit

© NASA/Cassini

Share

Ashburn

Latitude:
Longitude:
Timezone:

39.04°N
77.49°W
EDT

Color scheme