Jupiter and Saturn have been near each other for awhile in the night sky now, but tonight they have a visitor — the Moon! Just after nightfall the trio should rise and move along together across the sky.
No matter where in America you are, the Moon is rising just after sundown, and by 10 P.M. or so you’ll have a nice dark view of the trio. I hope it’s not too cloudy where you are! (Sorry, Florida — be safe down there.)
That will look something like this:
Tonight’s Moon is nearly full, too:
The reason the two planets appear close together in the first place is because this is where they are in their orbits compared to us right now:
But don’t stop watching Jupiter and Saturn after tonight! They’re going to keep getting closer together until they have a conjunction — a Great Conjunction, even — on December 21. This only happens once every 20 years, and the last time it did (in 2000), the two planets were closer to the Sun from our vantage point and so the viewing wasn’t very good. But not this time. By Dec. 21 they’ll practically run into each other, so close on the sky map you can’t depict them both:
The closest they’ve appeared together to us since 1623! If you have a telescope you’ll actually be able to catch Jupiter and Saturn in the same view:
So anyway, it’s getting dark here on the East Coast, and I’m going to start looking up. I hope you’ll do the same when night falls in your area!
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From 10 — 11 Eastern I went for a walk to check it out, and when I got outside we had a bit of a mackerel sky, so the Moon had a rainbow halo around it, bluish-green in the center and pink on the outside. As I got to the top of the big hill with a wide view of the sky, the mackerel clouds were drifting, even spinning away in a giant chevron shape, and they cleared away for me to see the trio very clearly. I just took it in for 5 or 10 minutes and then was on my way. This was nice, simple, and contemplative, and I’m happy that I went out there.