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Jupiter at opposition tonight.

dennilfloss

dennilfloss

Past Lifer 1957-2014 In Memoriam
Tonight Jupiter is the closest it's gonna be to Earth for the next 12 years, so it's a good time to have a nice look at it. 🙂
 
I have been watching it move across the sky for a few weeks. At around midnight (my most active time of day) it's currently sitting in exactly the right place that I can just look out of my bedroom window and there she is. It's very bright but I didn't know it was at opposition. Cool.
 
I saw a really bright planet out a few days ago. I was almost certain it was venus given the sheer brightness of it, but after seeing it with a simple pair of binoculars, the 4 jovian moons came clearly into sight. I thought to myself, hmm jupiter must be really close.. but I never expected an opposition! 🙂
 
astroidea said:
I saw a really bright planet out a few days ago. I was almost certain it was venus given the sheer brightness of it, but after seeing it with a simple pair of binoculars, the 4 jovian moons came clearly into sight. I thought to myself, hmm jupiter must be really close.. but I never expected an opposition! 🙂
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Venus is always, always near the sun (just think about the geometry for a second and it becomes obvious why). So if you see something really bright and it's not close to the sun, it's not Venus.
 
GodlessAstronomer said:
Venus is always, always near the sun (just think about the geometry for a second and it becomes obvious why). So if you see something really bright and it's not close to the sun, it's not Venus.
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Yeah I saw it close to after sunset.
Broad daylight is too bright for Venus to appear, so the best times to see it is after sunset and before sunrise.
 
GodlessAstronomer said:
Jupiter can't be close to the sun at opposition, so if you saw something close to the sun it wasn't Jupiter (however it will be visible soon after sunset, on the other side of the sky).
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I see what you're saying but it was certainly Jupiter as comfirmed with the binos, and I saw it before it was dark out. Perhaps it being a week before opposition had something to do with it?
:colbert:
 
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astroidea said:
I see what you're saying but it was certainly Jupiter as comfirmed with the binos, and I saw it before it was dark out. Perhaps it being a week before opposition had something to do with it?
:colbert:
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Before it was dark suggets you saw Venus.
 
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