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

Close approach of the Moon and Jupiter

Dominic Ford, Editor
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The sky at

The Moon and Jupiter will make a close approach, passing within 5°29' of each other. The Moon will be 7 days old.

From Fairfield , the pair will become visible at around 20:38 (EST), 51° above your south-western horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. They will then sink towards the horizon, setting at 01:54.

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

The Moon will be at mag -12.1; and Jupiter will be at mag -2.1. Both objects will lie in the constellation Leo.

They will be too widely separated to fit within the field of view of a telescope or pair of binoculars, but will be visible to the naked eye.

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 11h06m50s 1°10'N Leo -12.1 32'17"5
Jupiter 11h16m30s 6°06'N Leo -2.1 36"9

The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 96° from the Sun, which is in Taurus at this time of year.

The sky on 31 May 2028

The sky on 31 May 2028
Sunrise
05:20
Sunset
20:18
Twilight ends
22:21
Twilight begins
03:17

7-day old moon
Waxing Gibbous

61%

7 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 05:40 12:59 20:18
Venus 05:22 12:53 20:24
Moon 13:12 19:27 01:29
Mars 04:30 11:43 18:55
Jupiter 13:05 19:29 01:54
Saturn 03:47 10:30 17:13
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

13 May 2028  –  Jupiter ends retrograde motion
10 Feb 2029  –  Jupiter enters retrograde motion
11 Apr 2029  –  Jupiter at opposition
13 Jun 2029  –  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.

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Fairfield

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41.14°N
73.26°W
EST

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