Don’t miss Jupiter, Saturn and the moon forming a triangle in the sky this evening

It is thoughtful that the night sky offers so many beautiful views with so many people stuck at home. From Leonid meteor shower for The blue moon of Halloween, skywatchers have been spoiled recently. And here’s another treat: go out on Thursday night to see the moon, Saturn and Jupiter form an ordered triangle. The crescent moon will be visible in the south-southwest as the sky darkens, but the other two manifest a little later. Jupiter is expected to appear after sunset, and Saturn a little later.

“The best observation time is about 30 minutes after local sunset for about two hours, while the moon and planets are high enough in the sky to be clearly visible,” says Jeffrey Hunt, astronomy educator and former planetarium director. He wrote about the view on his site, When the Curves Line Up.

But if you’re missing that exact moment, it’s still worth going out. Hunt says the view will still be good until about four and a half hours after the local sunset. Saturn appears a little later because it is darker than Jupiter, he says, and brighter stars appear in the sky after sunset, while fainter stars appear later.

And you don’t need any special equipment. Hunt says that “binoculars or a small telescope, such as a birdwatching telescope, will show the lunar craters (and) the moons of Jupiter. If the binoculars are held still, some of Jupiter’s larger moons are visible. The small telescope will show a hint that Saturn has rings. “

If you miss the Thursday night show, look forward to more sky views in December. Hunt notes that there is another clustering of the moon and the Jupiter-Saturn pair on December 16, when the planets are closer.

This is just five days before a long-awaited event called The Great Conjunction, which will happen on December 21st. No, not Conjunction Junction – Hunt explains that when the moon, or a planet, has the same celestial longitude as another celestial object, we call it a conjunction. Jupiter passes Saturn in conjunction every 19.6 years, so the event is already rare, but the December 21 event will be the closest conjunction of the two since 1623.