Kevin's Watch

Right now (3:15 PM EST)! If you have clear skies, you can see it close to the moon, in broad daylight. The moon is a thin crescent very high in the sky, slightly southward at Kentucky latitudes. Let your eyes adjust to the light, hide the sun behind a tree or building, and look up at the moon for a good 30 seconds to a minute in order to adjust to the brightness. Then follow a line from the sun through the moon to about 4-5 moon widths beyond, and there will be a tiny point of light. That's Venus. It's pretty eerie seeing a planet in the blue sky.

After sunset, the show should be even more impressive, and easier to see. A fairly tight conjunction between Venus/Moon/Jupiter is in store for this evening. And when you're looking at this conjunction in the west, Mars will be about the same height in the east, behind you. A bright orange-red dot.

Actually, I just looked again, and the moon/sun/Venus aren't really in a line. That should give you the general direction, however. Venus will appear farther from the sun than the moon does.

Too bright here to see it right now. I'll check later.

It was pretty cool last night, Venus was high over the crescent moon, and Jupiter was just to the side of the moon.

If I am not mistaken, you can also see Jupiter as well, right in line of sight with the moon and Venus.

A little less bright than Venus, but still very visible.

About 30 minutes past sunset, this is a spectacular sight! If you have a clear sky, I highly recommend a quick look. Jupiter isn't as close to Moon and Venus as I had implied earlier, but it's still right up there with the two of them, lower in the sky.

Jelerak, Jupiter was also visible in the day, but I didn't see it. Sky and Telescope said that you would have needed binoculars to spot it.

If you have a telescope, Venus looks like a near-half crescent moon.

They are pretty darn bright in the San Francisco night sky right now. Very lovely!

Had my peeks at the celestial vagabonds myself while walking the dog. It's a sight indeed. I have no decent binoculars, but I seem to recall that seeing a few of the Jovian moons is possible with binoculars of reasonable quality.

Prebe, I've got some decent 10X50 binoculars, which capture a good amount of light. Yes, you can clearly see 4 moons of Jupiter with a decent set of binoculars. If you watch them week-by-week, you can see them changing position. They look like their own little solar system, all lined up neatly along their orbits.

My telescope lets me see a couple stripes of Jupiter's clouds, and a nice fat disc.

My telescope lets me see a couple stripes of Jupiter's clouds, and a nice fat disc.

Cool. I had a cheepo reflector telscope once. I could never get it to show me anything but a a smear. I probably should have been less stingy with my investment.

Stood outside for a bit before I went to the grocery store and watched the display. Very cool.

Prebe wrote:

My telescope lets me see a couple stripes of Jupiter's clouds, and a nice fat disc.

Cool. I had a cheepo reflector telscope once. I could never get it to show me anything but a a smear. I probably should have been less stingy with my investment.

Mine is homemade (not by me, a gift). If you buy a quality lens, you can make a nice telescope dirt cheap. I think it's PVP pipe, painted blue.

Hahaha, that's pretty cool.

--A