The Moon and Jupiter will make a close approach, passing within a mere 21.5 arcminutes of each other. From some parts of the world, the Moon will pass in front of Jupiter, creating a lunar occultation. The Moon will be 28 days old.
From Fairfield however, the pair will be visible from soon after it rises, at 05:59, until soon before it sets at 15:13. Always take extreme caution when trying to make daytime observations of the Moon while the Sun is above the horizon.
The Moon will be at mag -9.0; and Jupiter will be at mag -1.9. Both objects will lie in the constellation Sagittarius.
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 the Moon 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 |
| The Moon | 18h49m40s | -23°14' | Sagittarius | -9.0 | 30'40"5 |
| Jupiter | 18h49m40s | -22°53' | Sagittarius | -1.9 | 31"4 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 20° from the Sun, which is in Capricornus at this time of year.
The sky on 22 Jan 2020
| The sky on 22 January 2020 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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1% 27 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.
Related news
| 10 Jun 2019 | – Jupiter at opposition |
| 14 Jul 2020 | – Jupiter at opposition |
| 19 Aug 2021 | – Jupiter at opposition |
| 26 Sep 2022 | – Jupiter at opposition |
Image credit
The Moon in conjunction with Venus and Jupiter, with the Very Large Telescope in the foreground. Image © Y. Beletsky, ESO, 2009.