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Re: Jupiter-Saturn Conjunction: 21 Dec 2020
From: Brad Morris
Date: 2020 Jan 9, 22:25 -0500
From: Brad Morris
Date: 2020 Jan 9, 22:25 -0500
Hi Frank
With such closeness comes a slightly unusual request. How closely must we measure the angular separation to recover GMT, say, to one second? I absolutely realize they are very slow moving and the request is slightly ridiculous. Perhaps at such a small angular separation, the rate of change is a sizable percentage of the size.
Brad
On Thu, Jan 9, 2020, 10:17 PM Frank Reed <NoReply_FrankReed@fer3.com> wrote:
Mark your calendars. Book your flights. On December 21, 2020, Jupiter will pass just 6 minutes of arc from Saturn. Given the brilliance of Jupiter, that's close enough that they will appear nearly merged without a telescope. Through a small telescope the view will be quite spectacular. The timing is not especially favorable. Those of us in mid-northern latitudes will have about an hour after sunset to catch them before they set. But it's a once-in-four-lifetimes event. They haven't been so close in 200 years, and they won't be quite so close again until 2080. Closest separation during the last Jupiter-Saturn conjunction in 2000 was 1°09'. In the next conjunction after this year's in 2040, closest separation will be 1°08'.
Frank Reed
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