In case you’ve been spending time looking at the stars on the eye-that-never-blinks inside your home, the real stars (okay, planets actually) are currently putting on an incredible show in the southwestern sky.
February 23 may have been the better of the past few nights, however, the show will continue until mid March. So, any night that’s clear, get out there and see Venus, Jupiter and Luna, all coming to a sky near you. No red carpet, but no commercial interruptions, either.
These are the brightest objects in the sky and you won’t need a telescope or even binoculars to witness the conjunction they’re creating. Look for the crescent moon just before sunset. It’s in the southwest part of the sky. As the sky darkens, you’ll see two bright objects aligning with or near the moon. The brighter of the two is Venus, the other is Jupiter. On February 26 when I made these pictures it looked like Jupiter might fall into the open mouth of the moon. Okay, it takes a bit of imagination, but that’s what astronomy is for, asking the big “what if” questions. Astronomy is a three dimensional art, however, you're only allowed to use two dimensions when trying to figure out who is doing what to whom
Although the moon will move out of the scene as the days progress, the orbits of Venus and Jupiter will make them appear as close as a binary star by mid March—the real thing if you want to see what March Madness is all about.
No comments:
Post a Comment