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Venus /Jupiter conjunction- have I got it wrong?

Coastliner

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Coastliner

Coastliner

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Hi All,

I think I am making a schoolboy error re the current Venus/Jupiter conjunction. The picture, taken last night, is what I thought was venus and Jupiter, Venus on the righ, Jupiter over to the left and slightly higher. Is the image of Venus and Regulus? is Jupiter so close to Venus that it is obscured by Venus's light at the moment? Canon 60D, 70-300mm lens at 300.

post-30409-0-93757300-1435570355_thumb.j

Thanks,

Neil.

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Coastliner

Coastliner

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Thanks Steve,  Obvious check, the moons. It's just that according to Stellarium I was expecting V/J to be a lot closer together. I'll take a look tonight, clouds permitting.

I was never into the Grateful Dead, BTW.

Neil.

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hgjevans

hgjevans

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Definitely Venus and Jupiter - I was looking at them yesterday evening not long after sunset, through a little pair of binoculars. They would have a bit wider FoV than your 300mm on a 60D, but that's exactly the arrangement I saw. Regulus is much too far away from Venus at the moment to fit into that field, and it's about three magnitudes less bright than Jupiter. It wasn't dark enough for the Galilean moons to be visible, but there's really no way to confuse the two, given their current positions.

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Floater

Floater

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I'm not sure about this, Neil - and nervous about disagreeing with so many others - but it's worth having a punt ...

I think you have Venus/Jupiter on the right and Regulus up on the left.

I had a look last night but Venus (and Jupiter?) are so low I couldn't get my scope onto the view (neighbour's roof!) but through my small bins I thought I couldn't separate the two planets.

Below is a screenshot from Sky Safari of last night's sky and I think the points of light in your pic are too far apart to be the planets.

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Piero

Piero

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On Sky & Telescope (June 2015) it is reported that the conjunction Venus - Jupiter is on 30th June, about 1h after sunset. 

These will be 1/3 degrees apart. 

Therefore not yesterday. 

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Coastliner

Coastliner

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Floater, You are thinking the same as me. I realise the conjunction as tomorrow night 30th, but, and I admit I know very little about planetary motion, it looks to me as though the planets will have to get a move on in order to close the distance between them to 1/3of a degree by tomorrow night. In about an hour I will be able to go and take a look at what I think is Regulus and see if I can see any moons! If I can then it is obviously Jupiter. I'll start setting the scope up now (20:30).

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Floater

Floater

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Still too light in 90 minutes where I am, Paul. :( And too cloudy, anyhow.:((

But, further, I thought I had learned that one degree was the width of my little finger at arm's length. I think it was the One Minute Astronomer series that gave me that info.

As you wrote, curiouser and curiouser ...

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ghostdance

ghostdance

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Just going back to the original pic.....surely if the rightward point of light was Regulus, then the leftward has to be Jupiter? And Venus would be....?

(Googlesky has Jupiter obscuring Venus?! Eh.....Venus is what magnitude compared to Jupiter?)

Curiouser and curiouser indeed. I am falling down the rabbit-hole and losing my marbles.....but will the Gryphon be there at the bottom to meet me?

I need to get my scope cooling right now!

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Coastliner

Coastliner

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A quick update - I'm standing outside waiting for it to get darker. I have done a Solar System align to the Moon, and then set it to find Venus. Then I told it to find Jupiter, the scope hardly moved. Then regulus, then it moved a lot further over to the left, hinting that my original pic is of regulus and Venus.

Can't wait til dark!!

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Paul M

Paul M

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Here is last night

Screenshot_2015-06-28-20-49-20_zpsjokcsg

And tonight

Screenshot_2015-06-29-20-51-07_zpswnp6xg

What's going on there is that the images of the planets have been rendered many times larger than they really are on that constellation sized scale. In reality they would be points of light. 

The positions of their centers may shown correctly but their globes don't overlap.

It's not too easy for Jupiter to occult Venus either! :)

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ghostdance

ghostdance

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I just had a quick squint also using my 20x bins....Jupiter is clearly some distance leftward from Venus. I can see Venus'  crescent and Jupiters' disk as per Pauls' post above. I'm not too good at ascribing degrees but there is quite a gap between em... 

Phew...the rabbit hole has stopped spinning.... :)

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Coastliner

Coastliner

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Ok guys, my original is definitely a pic of Venus and.....Jupiter. I can "goto" both quite happily, and can see the crescent of Venus and the bands of Jupiter.

What has thrown me is what Paul M has alluded to, namely that any charts, diagrams we look at show the planets virtually touching, when in fact they are well apart. Now, real-life, they are about half a finger width apart. Not my idea of a conjunction yet, let's see what tomorrow brings.

Still, a worthwhile exercise!

A lovely evening, time to crack open a beer methinks!

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