Venus Meets Jupiter (morning Monday October 26)

Early morning sky on Monday October 26 looking east as seen from Adelaide at 5:30 ACDST showing Venus, Jupiter and Mars. Venus and Jupiter are at their closest. Similar views will be seen elsewhere in Australia. (click to embiggen).

If you have been up early over the past week you wll have seen Venus coming closer to the pair of Jupiter and Mars in the morning sky.

The cumulates with Jupiter and Venus being closest on the morning of the 26th. They will be around a finger width apart (actually 1 degree apart, they will be closest about 7 am AEDST, but it won’t be too much different before then), and will just fit in a low power telescope eyepiece. This will look rather nice, although you will not be able to see any detail on the pair, you should see Jupiter’s Moons.

The view of Venus and Mars through a 20 mm eyepiece of a 114 mm Newtonian reflector simulated in Stellarium.

Venus then moves to a meeting with Mars on the 31st.