Mark Your Calendars

[Jim Koepke]

This happens occasionally:

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Too many trees to my west, may have to drive to a better location to see this.

jtk

[Lee Schierer]

Thanks Jim

Ooops, it turns out that the proposed smiley face on May 16th is a false rumor. I checked with my son who is quite knowledgeable about things celestial. Here is what he said.

Jupiter is in the south eastern sky late at night, and Venus is visible in the western sky at sunset for the next several months.

The attached image shows the night sky on May 16th about an hour after sunset. The yellowish-brown line shows the horizon. You can see crescent Venus in the WNW and see that Saturn and Jupiter hasn't risen yet. Further, the moon isn't even in the sky.
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The moon passes each planet once a month of course, but the real show is in the morning sky before sunrise since Mars, Jupiter and Saturn are all together with Mars moving apart since February. Jupiter and Saturn will rise earlier each day until July when they'll be visible shortly after sunset.

A legit conjunction this year: Saturn and Jupiter will be getting closer together all year. By December they'll be right next to each other. Finally, they will eventually get within 0.6 degrees in December for the winter solstice. This conjunction happens roughly every 20 years. See attached image for scale. Visually, on the 20th Callisto (one of the Galilean satellites marked IV in the image) will appear closer to Saturn than Jupiter. On the 21st Saturn will visually be at it's closest to Jupiter.
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