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Re: Jupiter-Venus angular separation
From: Frank Reed
Date: 2022 May 2, 08:13 -0700
From: Frank Reed
Date: 2022 May 2, 08:13 -0700
We're past the minimum Jupiter-Venus separation, but it's still a relatively small angle. From here in southern New England, the separation was 1.4° this (cloudy) morning and will be 2.3° tomorrow morning (also probably cloudy). That's changing at a rate of 0.9° per day which is about fifteen times more slowly than a typical lunar distance observation. So presumably you could determine your longitude using this Jupiter-Venus distance but it would be 15x worse than by lunar --not very good. Still, there might be some advantages here... Suppose you were comfortable with a relatively rough estimate of longitude. What would be involved in the process of getting GMT/UT from a Venus-Jupiter observation this week?
Frank Reed
