Venus and Saturn

[beowabbit]

If you're out after sunset with a reasonably unobstructed view this weekend, look west. Venus and Saturn are very near each other in the sky at the moment. The brilliant white thing that doesn't twinkle is Venus; the much dimmer (but still fairly bright compared to most stars) yellowish thing above and to the left of Venus is Saturn. Noticed them this evening and wondered if that was Saturn since I’d read it was going to be very near Venus this weekend; when I got home just now they were still above the neighbouring rooftops and I was able to confirm with binoculars and with a dinky tabletop telescope I have. (In the binoculars, they were both obviously oblong, at perpendicular axes, and in the telescope I could pretty well tell what phase Venus was. The big difference was not magnification but stability.)

(The earlier after sunset you look, the higher they’ll be in the sky.)

Comments

[xauenmurph.livejournal.com]

that'll definitely be worth a look. do you subscribe to spacenews too?

[xauenmurph.livejournal.com]

er, "spaceweather."

[signsoflife.livejournal.com]

Oh, how neat! I totally noticed that Venus seemed to have a friend last night, and now I see your post and understand what I saw!