Sat Mar 23, 2024 11:33 pm by globalturbo
May 22, 2013
Rare Cosmic Event: “Dance of the Planets” Visible May 24 to 30, 2013
Thanks to Sheldan and Colleen Nidle for sharing in their newsletter
From the latter part of May and continuing for a month, an amazing
display of planets will play itself out near the horizon in the
west-northwest part of the sky. Beginning each night right after the sun
sets around May 19, a “dancing with the stars” exhibition is put on by
the three brightest planets as seen from Earth: Venus, Mercury and
Jupiter.
In 2013 we will get to see the most compact three-planet grouping
visible without binoculars for the next 13 years. The planets will not
appear this close together again until the year 2026! Added to this
sight will be a beautiful apparition of Mercury.
The three worlds will appear to skip about one another. The
alterations in their positions in the early evening sky will be visible
to the naked eye night by night. Venus and Jupiter will be very close
together by May 28. Afterwards, Venus will move in a northwesterly (to
the upper right) direction compared to Jupiter. At that point it will be
six times as bright as Jupiter.
Mercury becomes possible to observe at Venus’s lower right around May
19th. It appears closer to Venus each evening until May 24th, when it’s
just 1⅓° to the upper right of Venus. From May 24th to 29th, Venus,
Jupiter, and Mercury will all fit within a 5° circle. Thus, they can all
be viewed simultaneously through binoculars without moving the glasses.
The pattern is most compact on May 26th, when all three planets are
close enough to each other to fit in a 2½° circle. Jupiter appears right
next to Venus on the 27th, and after that it slowly pulls down and
right of Venus, disappearing from view in early June. But Mercury is
only now in the major phase of its apparition, flying over Venus until
June 7th.
At that point , the planet will start to gradually move downward,
nearing Venus again. However, Mercury has started to grow dimmer, as it
must while engaged in an evening apparition. It will diminish little by
little, the fading speeding up by June 15. Mercury had been almost as
bright as Jupiter when the apparition started, but will shrink to a
tenth of that brightness by the 20th of June.
Source
Thanks to: http://2012thebigpicture.wordpress.com
Rare Cosmic Event: “Dance of the Planets” Visible May 24 to 30, 2013
Thanks to Sheldan and Colleen Nidle for sharing in their newsletter
From the latter part of May and continuing for a month, an amazing
display of planets will play itself out near the horizon in the
west-northwest part of the sky. Beginning each night right after the sun
sets around May 19, a “dancing with the stars” exhibition is put on by
the three brightest planets as seen from Earth: Venus, Mercury and
Jupiter.
In 2013 we will get to see the most compact three-planet grouping
visible without binoculars for the next 13 years. The planets will not
appear this close together again until the year 2026! Added to this
sight will be a beautiful apparition of Mercury.
The three worlds will appear to skip about one another. The
alterations in their positions in the early evening sky will be visible
to the naked eye night by night. Venus and Jupiter will be very close
together by May 28. Afterwards, Venus will move in a northwesterly (to
the upper right) direction compared to Jupiter. At that point it will be
six times as bright as Jupiter.
Mercury becomes possible to observe at Venus’s lower right around May
19th. It appears closer to Venus each evening until May 24th, when it’s
just 1⅓° to the upper right of Venus. From May 24th to 29th, Venus,
Jupiter, and Mercury will all fit within a 5° circle. Thus, they can all
be viewed simultaneously through binoculars without moving the glasses.
The pattern is most compact on May 26th, when all three planets are
close enough to each other to fit in a 2½° circle. Jupiter appears right
next to Venus on the 27th, and after that it slowly pulls down and
right of Venus, disappearing from view in early June. But Mercury is
only now in the major phase of its apparition, flying over Venus until
June 7th.
At that point , the planet will start to gradually move downward,
nearing Venus again. However, Mercury has started to grow dimmer, as it
must while engaged in an evening apparition. It will diminish little by
little, the fading speeding up by June 15. Mercury had been almost as
bright as Jupiter when the apparition started, but will shrink to a
tenth of that brightness by the 20th of June.
Source
Thanks to: http://2012thebigpicture.wordpress.com
