Jupiter and Saturn will share the same right ascension, with Jupiter passing 1°08' to the north of Saturn.

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

From Cambridge , the pair will become visible at around 19:47 (EDT), 29° above your western horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. They will then sink towards the horizon, setting 3 hours and 15 minutes after the Sun at 22:33.

Jupiter will be at mag -2.1, and Saturn at mag 0.0, both in the constellation Taurus.

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

A graph of the angular separation between Jupiter and Saturn 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 39° from the Sun, which is in Pisces 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.

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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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