Conjunction of Moon & Jupiter March 2024

Conjunction Background: Occasionally, two or more objects meet up with each other in our sky. Astronomers use the word conjunction to describe these meetings. The word conjunction comes from Latin, meaning to join together.
In astronomy, a conjunction occurs when two astronomical objects or spacecraft appear to be close to each other in the sky.
This means they have either the same right ascension or the same ecliptic longitude, usually as observed from Earth.
When two objects always appear close to the ecliptic—such as two planets, the Moon and a planet, or the Sun and a planet—this fact implies an apparent close approach between the objects as seen in the sky.
A related word, appulse, is the minimum apparent separation in the sky of two astronomical objects.
Conjunctions involve either two objects in the Solar System or one object in the Solar System and a more distant object, such as a star. A conjunction is an apparent phenomenon caused by the observer's perspective: the two objects involved are not actually close to one another in space.
Conjunctions between two bright objects close to the ecliptic, such as two bright planets, can be seen with the naked eye.
You can keep up to date with upcoming conjunctions by visiting 'Earthsky.org'

Description: A thin crescent moon, 18 percent illuminated by sunlight — and situated about 3 degrees to the left of this slender lunar sliver will be a brilliant silvery white "star."
This isn't a star, but the planet identified with the supreme sky-god, Jupiter.
To judge how far apart they will appear in the sky, recall that your clenched fist, correctly held, will measure about 10 degrees.
So, you can use your fist to make a reasonable estimate of degrees either horizontally or vertically.
In this case, both moon and planet should appear separated by about one-third of the width of a fist.
For at least several nights, up to nearly a week after a new moon, sunlight reflected from Earth illuminates the night side of the moon, making its whole disk visible. Here is one of nature's beautiful sights and fits the old saying, "the old moon in the new moon's arms." Jupiter is still the brightest star-like object in the evening and the first to come out each night at dusk.
It still outshines the brightest true stars; in fact, it's nearly twice as bright as the brightest of all the stars, Sirius, which in early evening sparkles about one-third of the way up in the southern part of the sky.

Conjunction of Moon & Jupiter

Jupiter is just to the left of the Moon. The Pleiades open cluster is visable in the top center of the image.

Imaging Details

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