Throughout the known history, night sky has been a place full of surprises and fascinating events. This year we are going to be lucky once again to glimpse one of the rarest events ever to be happen in our sky, two giant planets coming closer enough to fit in the same field of view of a common telescope.
With planets moving around the sun they appear to move across the sky against the stars in the background sky. In this planetary movement we some times see two planets come closer together for a brief period of time in our night sky. This phenomenon is called a planetary conjunction. We normally see 3 or 4 or (sometimes more than that) planetary conjunctions a year. This December we are going to see one such conjunction in our sky. That is the conjunction between Jupiter and Saturn which is going to happen on 21st of December. In this conjunction the distance between planets become less than a one tenth of a degree. That is nearly 1/5 of the full moon diameter. And if you look at this conjunction with your naked eye you will see both planets as one unless if you have an eyesight better than 20/100 according to Neil deGrasse Tyson.
According to astronomy such a closer encounter between Jupiter and Saturn had happened in 1623 when great Galileo was alive.
Don’t wait till 21st
The Jupiter and Saturn can already be seen closer together in our western sky just after the sunset. The Image below show how they appear together over the western horizon this evening at 7.38 pm. As the days goes by, they will become closer making the closest encounter on 21st.
At the closest approach the two planets will fit inside the field of view of normal telescopes giving a great opportunity for photographers to record this rare event through their lenses.
Just a two-hour window to see this great event
On 21st the Sun is to set at 6 pm, and the two planets will go down the horizon at around 8 pm. So, we have only mere two-hour window to observe this conjunction.
So mark your calendars and get ready to see this remarkable event on December 21st and don’t forget to start observing the two planets as they come closer to each other over the coming days.
