Tonight and over the next few nights there is a conjunction of Jupiter and Venus at Sunset. If you look to the Southwest, the 2 brightest “stars” are actually the planets Jupiter and Venus close together in the evening sky.
Monday night December 1, the 2 planets from our vantage point will be even closer together and will have the added bonus of the crescent moon forming a triangle.
If you’re a little ambitious the next few nights take your binoculars of at least 10x, steady yourself on the side of your house or on top of your car, and look for the 4 Galilean moons of Jupiter. The 4 largest moons of Jupiter will look like tiny, bright pin pricks around the planet. At least 3 should be easily visible. This way you’ll know which planet is which. Venus will be the brighter of the 2 planets, but it’s fun to see what Galileo saw through his primitive telescope looking at Jupiter.
In conjunction from earths vantage, the actual separation of the 2 planets is somewhere around 350 million miles or 560 million kilometers.
bob
