The Conjunction Nears!

Good afternoon, everyone!

I'm not sure if readers of this newsletter would find brief reminders helpful or bothersome, but I'll assume the former. So if you aren't already, start keeping your eyes on the sunsets! Jupiter and Saturn are continuing to close in on each other, and as we speak the moon is passing through the scene as well.

The weather has been pretty cloudy here lately, but it did clear enough last night to give me a glimpse of the sunset, with a beautiful sliver of moon beneath the duo of Jovian planets. It looked to me like the two planets were almost as close together as the width of the moon. Alas, it looks like it will be cloudy again here tonight, but if you can see the sunset where you live, it should be quite pretty. The moon will now be above the planets instead of below, but it should still be close enough to compare. If you go out about an hour after sunset and face southwest, assuming you have an unobstructed view of the horizon, you should see something like this:

And of course, please continue to watch the sunsets for the next week, as the planets close to their historic conjunction next Monday!

Cheers!John