Venus-Jupiter conjunction August 27

26 August 2016

 - On August 27, 2016, the sky’s two brightest planets Venus and Jupiter will stage the year’s closest conjunction of two planets. These worlds appear only about 1/15th degree apart on the sky’s dome. How close is that? Well, 1/15th of a degree is the equivalent of about 1/7th to 1/8th of the moon’s apparent diameter. That’s a very small span, and these two worlds will easily fit within the same binocular or telescopic field of view.

These worlds are close to the sunset, though. From anywhere worldwide, you’ll want to find an unobstructed horizon in the direction of sunset. Given a clear sky, you should see Venus and then Jupiter popping out near the sunset point on the horizon around 30 to 40 minutes after the sun goes down.