Jupiter, Venus and Crescent Moon - all togther tomorrow night

BenjAii

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27958792/

Something worth looking out for; knowing Irish weather of course it will be cloudy, but maybe not ......

chilipepper

It should be an impressive sight. We will have to get lucky with the weather. Met Eireann are forecasting fog and a spell of rain and sleet (hopefully some snow) moving down from the northwest tomorrow evening.

M.T. Cranium

If the spectacle is visible on Monday evening, note that Venus will be behind the Moon from about 1530 to 1710h ... watch for it to emerge from behind the Moon's sunlit side at about 1710h (this will vary slightly from place to place, but all of Ireland should be able to see the three-part spectacle by 1720 or 1730, once Venus clears the light glare from the Moon).

Jupiter will be further from the Moon (above the other two) and will appear less bright than Venus, although bright enough to be seen very easily in twilight.

SkepticOne

Quick handheld (hence the blur) photo taken just now. Jupiter is just out of the picture to the top right.

Tenger

M.T. Cranium wrote: »

If the spectacle is visible on Monday evening, .................Jupiter will be further from the Moon (above the other two) and will appear less bright than Venus, although bright enough to be seen very easily in twilight.

Thanks for the description...........and spot on it is,watching it now.

chilipepper

Well that was well worth watching. It was dark enough to see venus emerge from behind the moon at 17.04 at my location and the ISS passed over soon after that so all in all it was a very good evenings star gazing.

Can see it perfectly down here this evening-Its a beautifull sight!

andy1249

I was just outside looking at this , can be seen with the naked eye , then spent about 20 mins getting my rickety national geographic scope set up , pretty amazing all right.

conceited

Was wondering what was next to the moon now i know.
Nice sight !!

_feedback_

Really is a spectacle! How long is this expected to last for? Want to show the missus but she's not finished work till 7!

yomchi

Can see it clear as day, over Clonee Dublin 15 right now

Looks fanatastic, hair on back of neck type stuff!

loobylou

First time here, just came on to find out which planets they were. Thanks for the info., I had to stop the car on the way home to have a look. Absolutely beautiful sight!

Typhoon.

Same here...was never in this forum...i knew boards would have the info i needed on these stars...thanks all

god boards is great !

老大

Wow that was fab,
was watching it all the way home in the car.!
Pity i dont have a powerful camera to take a close up pic.

was trying to also see the space station as it flew by too.. didnt manage to catch it though

Dirk Gently

I have to say that was really spectacular, almost like a piece of fantasy art.

Calibos

I cannot believe the weather Gods played ball this time. Usually any time limited celestial event is clouded out in this country. ie one will always eventually get some clear spells to look at the stuff thats always up there, but any event that lasts a few minutes, hours, a day or three, like Eclipses of the moon or Sun, Occultations, ISS passes, Meteor showers etc. Always clear before and after but cloudy during.

Turns out Venus has been a lucky planet for me in this regard though. It was clear for the Venus transit across the face of the sun for me a few years ago too. The God of Love must love me as we got a beautiful clear sky this time too!!

The beginning of the event when Venus disappeared behind the dark unlit 'invisible' side of the moon was interesting, which Venus' half lit disc slowly dimming over about 30 seconds and its semi circular disc growing thinner and thinner to a sliver till it finally disappeared.

If the ingresss was 'interesting' the egress was SPECTACULAR!

With the background sky much darker the crescent moon really stood out brightly. When Venus finally re-appearred it was much more dramatic than its disappearance. In the space of only 10 seconds this sparkling blue diamond much brighter than the already bright surface of the moon, rapidly came out from behind the moons limb. Beautiful sight in my scope with the bright diffraction spikes.

Then I viewed it with my binoculars. A beautiful site in a differrent way. Being able to see the whole moon at the one time, one could see the dark portion of the moon dimly lit up by earthshine. The diamondlike Venus almost touching the bright crescent and a small patch of haze had moved over the moon. This made for an even more beautiful sight with the haze glowing from the crescent moonlight.

Even naked eye it was spectacular with Jupiter now visible closeby too. At the risk of sounding vulgar, it looked like a boob in the sky, with Venus as the nipple!!

I think that settles it, I must definately have a dirty mind!

I didn't want people to think I was too nerdish about this astronomy lark with my piece of descriptive prose. Had to finish it off by talking about the giant tit in the sky.

Tenger

Calibos wrote: »

.If the ingresss was 'interesting' the egress was SPECTACULAR!

Then I viewed it with my binoculars.

Wish I had my binoc at home so I could have a good look too.

My best shot below:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tearbringer/3075200163/

bucks73

Cool photo Bramble.

I got into the car about 5.30 and spotted it straight away and was wondering what the hell i was. Just before 6 Matt Cooper was talking about it and explained it all.

Fantastic sight.

andy1249

Some great shots here from an australian site , in the southern hemisphere the view was of a big smiley face in the sky ,

http://www.news.com.au/gallery/0,23607,5036115-5007150-34,00.html

redman

Nice shot Bramble, it certainly was fantastic to watch , especially Venus coming out the other side.

rhonin

Nice photo Bramble. The weather didn't play ball here. Just as Venus re-appeared the clouds rolled in and ruined it.

p to the e

wow i actually saw this and recognised Venus. didn't know Jupiter was in the mix up aswell.

Valmont

I was visiting my grandparents and as I walked in my grandad rushed past up the stairs shouting 'bugger the clouds,ahhhhhh!', naturally I followed to see what all the fuss was about and then literally 1 minute later, I was looking at the moon as he told me to (the clouds just disappeard) and I saw the twinkle of Venus slowly emerge, it was really impressive through the binoculars.

I've never really been interested in astronomy but I think I'll pay closer attention now as that was a really memorable occasion.

Are there any other cool things happening soon like this one?