Category: Convergence - Ascension Now

SUNSET SKY SHOW:

24/2/2023

The 3-day mutual conjunction of Venus, Jupiter and the Moon witnessed by sunset sky watchers around the world is over. Here is how it ended on Feb. 23rd:

"The Moon rose above the planetary duo of Jupiter and Venus to create a beautiful line in the western sky," says Petr Horálek, who took the picture from Thoddoo, Maldives. "Cirrus clouds appeared and beautifully magnified the dramatic colors of sunset. It was a very romantic moment."
The Moon is exiting, but the show's not over. Venus and Jupiter are still converging. At closest approach on March 1st, they will be just 0.5 degrees apart--a beautiful pairing and one of the best astrophoto-ops of 2023. Look west at sunset.
https://spaceweather.com/

Jupiter and Saturn to appear as brilliant star or ‘double planet’ in night sky this Christmas

28/11/2020

Jupiter and Saturn will come closer to each other in the Earth's night sky than they have for almost a millennium between December 16 and 25 in an extremely rare astronomical extravaganza. The pair will be separated by one fifth the diameter of a full moon as viewed from the Earth, in an extraordinary astronomical proximity event which has not occurred for 800 years.

The planets will appear as a singular point of brilliant light or a “double planet” to anyone lucky enough to have clear skies at the time of their yuletide rendezvous

“Alignments between these two planets are rather rare, occurring once every 20 years or so, but this conjunction is exceptionally rare because of how close the planets will appear to one another,” says astronomer Patrick Hartigan from Rice University.

For context, their previous closest celestial encounter on record (as we see them anyway) was on March 4, 1226. As always, the best viewing conditions will be near the equator but, with clear enough skies, it should be visible from anywhere on Earth about an hour after sunset each evening. Stargazers should point their telescopes toward the western sky, especially during the closest approach on December 21, when the pair will appear as a “double planet.”

“For most telescope viewers, each planet and several of their largest moons will be visible in the same field of view that evening,” Hartigan adds.

The viewing window will be shorter for those in the northern hemisphere, however, so stargazers are encouraged to make preparations well in advance and head out early to avoid missing the mesmerizing meeting.

Their next astronomical alignment is expected in March 2080 and then again in 2400.
https://www.rt.com/news/507528-jupiter-saturn-alignment-double-planet/
Read also: https://www.iceagenow.info/jupiter-and-saturn-about-to-do-something-not-seen-since-the-year-1226/

PLANETS IN THE SUNSET SKY:

19/8/2016

Venus and Jupiter are converging in the sunset sky for a close encounter on Aug.27th. Yesterday in the Snowy Mountains of NSW Australia, Phil Hart photographed the two bright planets approaching one another with Mercury looking on:

"A highlight of six days backcountry skiing in NSW was the planetary alignment of Venus, Mercury and Jupiter," says Hart. "It took a few nights to get the weather and scenery to cooperate, but after an hour of traipsing around and lying down in the snow, I managed to capture this shot on our last night out."

The view will improve in the evenings ahead as the distance between Jupiter and Venus decreases. At closest approach on Aug 27th, the two worlds will appear only about 1/15th of a degree apart. If you hold a pencil at arm's length, the eraser would cover both planets at once. Moreover, Venus and Jupiter will easily fit within a telescopic field of view--an amazing sight if you have a backyard telescope.

Remember, though, that a telescope is not required. Venus and Jupiter are bright enough to see with the naked eye even from light-polluted urban areas. Try to catch them about 30 minutes after sunset before the sky fades completely black. The sight of two planets in conjunction surrounded by twilight blue is extra-beautiful.
www.spaceweather.com

MORNING PLANET SHOW:

24/10/2015

Set your alarm for dawn. Venus, Jupiter and Mars are gathering for a three-way close encounter in the early morning sky. Yesterday, Jeff Dai woke up early and photographed the convergence from Yading, China:

"At 6 am, Venus, Jupiter and Mars were rising just above the Xianuodukji peak at Yading national natural reserve in the province of Sichuan," says Dai. "The view was spectacular."

It's about to become even more spectacular. From Oct. 24th to Oct. 29th the converging planets will fit together inside a circle only 5o wide (sky maps: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6). This means you can see all three planets at once using typical binoculars. Of course, you can also see the three planets with the naked eye. It is extra-cool, however, to frame the planets in a single binocular field of view. Wake up early and check it out. www.spaceweather.com

SUNSET SKY SHOW:

1/6/2015

If you love stargazing, there's a date you should mark on your calendar. It's June. That's right, the whole month. Throughout the month of June 2015, the two brightest planets in the night sky are converging for an amazing sunset sky show. At closest approach on June 30th, Venus and Jupiter will be less than 1/3rd of a degree apart. Even now, a month ahead of time, the gathering is beautiful. Leo Caldas sends this picture from Brasilia, Brazil:

"The Hubble Space Telescope flew by the planets just as I was photographing the conjunction," says Caldas. "Perfect timing."

In the weeks ahead, Venus and Jupiter will draw steadily closer together. You can see the distance shrink every night. Dates of special interest include June 12th, when Venus passes by the Beehive star cluster. Using binoculars, scan the sky around Venus to observe the cluster. On June 19th, the crescent Moon joins Venus and Jupiter to form a bright isosceles triangle in the sunset sky. One night later, on June 20th, the triangle reappears with shape-shifted vertices. From then until the end of the month, the converging planets will rush together, seemingly on a collision course, but actually en route to a near-miss on June 30th-July 1st.

Keep an eye on the sunset sky for the rest of the month.

SOMETHING AMAZING HAPPENING AT JUPITER:

18/1/2015

Jupiter and Earth are converging for a (relatively) close encounter in early February when the giant planet is at opposition--that is, directly opposite the sun in the midnight sky. This sets the stage for an extraordinary sequence of events. For the next couple of months, backyard sky watchers can see the moons of Jupiter executing a complex series of mutual eclipses and transits. Astrophotographer "Shiraishi" Kumagaya-shi, Saitama, Japan, captured this example on Jan. 17th:

"First, Ganymede partially eclipsed Callisto; then Europa partially eclipsed Io," says Shiraishi. "I did not need a telescope. To photograph this double mutual event, I used a Nikon Coolpix P510 digital camera set at ISO 800 for a series of 1/10s exposures."

The moons of Jupiter will be passing in front of one another and in front of Jupiter with fair frequency through March 2015 and beyond. This is happening because Jupiter's opposition on Feb. 6th coincides almost perfectly with its equinox on Feb. 5th (when the Sun crosses Jupiter's equatorial plane). It is an edge-on apparition of the giant planet that lends itself to eclipses, occulations and transits.

The next big event is right around the corner. On Jan. 24, 2015, beginning at approximately 06:26 UT (1:26 AM EST), the three moons Io, Callisto and Europa will simultaneously cast their inky shadows on Jupiter's cloudtops. This is called a "triple shadow transit," and it is rare. The timing favors observers in North America where the planet will be shining high in the sky in the constellation Leo. Anyone with a backyard telescope is encouraged to watch this easy-to-observe event. (Advice: Start watching at least 30 minutes ahead of time.) www.spaceweather.com

What's happening in space:

4/1/2015

FULL WOLF MOON:
There's a full Moon tonight and according to folklore it has a special name: the Full Wolf Moon. Arcing high through the winter sky, the bright orb turns night into a simulacrum of day and shines through freezing clouds, producing spectacular ice halos. Go outside, take a look, and try not to howl. www.spaceweather.com

VENUS AND MERCURY:
Tonight, when the sun goes down, step outside and face west. Mercury and Venus are converging in the sunset sky. Japanese photographer "Shiraishi" sends this picture from Kumagaya-shi, Saitama:

"Venus popped out of the twilight first, then Mercury followed as the sky darkened," says Shiraishi. "To capture the pair I used a Nikon COOLPIX P510 digital camera set at ISO 400 for a 1/6s exposure."

Sunset photographers should take note of those settings, because the Mercury-Venus show is just beginning. For the next week, the two planets will draw closer and closer together. On the date of closest approach, Jan. 10th, they will be a scant 0.7 degrees apart--three times closer than they are tonight! The width of your little finger held at arm's length is enough to eclipse the pair.

If you can't see Mercury with the naked eye alone, you might be looking too soon after sunset. Wait a while for the twilight to deepen. Or if you have binoculars, aim them at Venus to reel in Mercury. Once you find Mercury, you might be surprised at how bright it appears.

Monitor Spaceweather.com's photo gallery for Venus-Mercury snapshots from around the world. Better yet, go outside and see for yourself. www.spaceweather.com

Green comet 'Lovejoy' lights up the New Year sky : Kiran Moodley : The Independent, UK : 01 Jan 2015

© The Independent, UK : A green-glowing comet will reach its closest position to Earth on January 7.

The comet Lovejoy is set to light up the skies and excite many a stargazer over the first week of the New Year as it reaches its closest point to Earth. The comet, formerly known as C/2014 Q2, is named after amateur Australian astronomer Terry Lovejoy and was discovered in August.

The comet has been growing more visible in recent weeks to those living in the Southern Hempishere and Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory says the comet will reach its nearest position to Earth on January 7, a distance of about 70.2 million kilometres away. Thus, the green-glowing comet will be visible to those in the Northern Hemisphere.

MARS vs. ANTI-MARS:

25/9/2014

Shining bright red in the heart of the constellation Scorpius, 1st-magnitude star Antares is often mistaken for Mars. In Greek, "Antares" means "rival of Mars" or "anti-Mars," so-named because it is about the same brightness and color as the Red Planet. As September comes to a close, the rivals are converging. Jeff Dai sends this photo of Mars and Antares setting side-by-side behind Mount Balang in Sichuan, China:

"I was looking southwest in the evening sky on Sept. 20th when a conspicuous pair of ruddy objects grabbed my attention," says Dai. "Red planet Mars is moving in for a close encounter with its ancient rival, the red supergiant star Antares."

On Sept. 28th and 29th, the nights of closest approach, Mars and Antares will be only a few degrees apart, a conjunction tight enough to fit behind your outstretched palm. Sept. 29th is the best night to look because the Moon will join the display, lining up to form a near-vertical column of heavenly bodies just above the southwestern horizon. Sept. 27th is a good night, too, but for a different reason: A slender crescent Moon will pass very close to Saturn not far from Antares and Mars. Sky maps: Sept. 25, 26, 27, 28, 29. www.spaceweather.com

Shamans from around the world gather in Siberia for ceremony timed to coincide with cosmic cycles

19/9/2014

Anna Liesowska : The Siberian Times : 10 Sep 2014

Stunning pictures as shamans from around the world gather in Sayan Mountains.

© Alexander Nikolsky : 'Call of 13 Shamans', Republic of Tuva.

A shaman, in the dictionary definition, is 'a person regarded as having access to, and influence in, the world of good and evil spirits, especially among some peoples of northern Asia and North America. Typically such people enter a trance state during a ritual, and practise divination and healing.' These images - giving an extraordinary glimpse inside this largely unknown world - have emerged of a conclave held this summer over nine days near the village Khorum-Dag in Tuva Republic. This festival, named 'Call of 13 Shamans' was held in an area of Siberia that retains great respect for shamans and was intended as a show of unity by the planet's most respected practitioners.

The shamans began by going to different locations in the mountains for three days of meditation, making rites and holding ceremonies. The timing had been selected to match the natural cosmic cycles and calculations of experts from various theological schools.

'On these days the sky, as if taking a step toward the ridges of the Sayan Mountains, is getting closer. So the inner eye of the wisest shamans of Earth will open new horizons through communication with spirits, planets and stars of far Black Heaven (Cosmos), comprehension of the mysteries of the interaction of stars, planets and Mother Earth in modern times, and what to expect on our planet in the future,' said the organisers in advance.

You can read this article in its entirety - with many photographs - at : http://www.sott.net/article/285608-Shamans-from-around-the-world-gather-in-Siberia-for-ceremony-timed-to-coincide-with-cosmic-cycles

MORNING PLANETS:

17/8/2014

Set your alarm for dawn! Venus and Jupiter are converging for a spectacular conjunction in the early morning sky. At closest approach on the morning of August 18th, the two brightest planets in the solar system will be only 0.2o apart. This is what they looked like one day early, August 17th, from the Canadian side of Lake Ontario:

"It was a beautiful conjunction in the pre-dawn sky," says photographer Gary Colwell. "And it will get even better on Monday morning."

To see the show, find a place with a good view of the north-northeastern horizon. No telescope is required. Jupiter and Venus are bright enough to see with the naked eye even from light polluted cities. In fact, as Colwell's photo shows, you can see them even after the sun begins to brighten the dawn. A tight conjunction of Venus and Jupiter framed by twilight blue is a great way to start the day.

For more information, see this video from NASA. www.spaceweather.com

CONVERGING PLANETS:

13/8/2014

Venus and Jupiter are converging for a stunning conjunction in the pre-dawn sky. At closest approach on August 18th, the two planets will be just 0.2 degrees apart, tight enough to hide behind the tip of your outstretched pinky. Flying astrophotographer, pilot Brian Whittaker, photographed the converging pair 35,000 feet over Northern Ontario, Canada, on August 12th:

"I spotted Jupiter with Venus just 6 days before the super conjunction," says Whittaker. "It was a beautiful view--and it's only going to get better."

Observing tips: Look east about 30 minutes before sunrise. A clear view of the horizon is required to see the low-hanging pair. Each morning between now and the 18th the distance between the two will decrease as they converge for their dramatic meeting next Monday.

No special optics are required to see the amazingly bright pair, but if you have binoculars, use them. A quick scan of the sky around Venus and Jupiter on August 18th reveals that the two worlds are not alone. The planets are converging right beside M44, the Beehive Cluster. Located about 500 light years from Earth, this busy cluster of stars is barely visible to the naked eye, but it is an easy target for ordinary binoculars. At first glance it might seem that a pair of supernovas has gone off inside the cluster—but that's just Venus and Jupiter passing by. www.spaceweather.com

OPPOSITION OF MARS:

31/3/2014

Earth and Mars are converging for a close encounter in April. It's only March, but the view through backyard telescopes is already superb. Michael A. Phillips of Swift Creek, NC, took this picture using a 14-inch telescope on March 27:

In Phillips's picture, south is up. It shows the rapidly evaporating North Polar Cap (summer arrived in February), orographic clouds over martian volcanoes near the equator, and a bright blue cloud filling Hellas Basin in the south. Only an experienced astrophotographer can produce this kind of Hubblesque detail using backyard optics. Novice observers looking through the eyepiece of a small telescope can still see a lot, however, including the rusty-red disk of Mars and bright smudges corresponding to the polar cap and Hellas Basin.

The view will improve in April. Get ready to see the Red Planet at its best as explained in "The Opposition of Mars" from Science@NASA. www.spaceweather.com

RED MARS, BLUE SPICA, BIG ASTEROIDS:

23/3/2014

Mars is approaching Earth for a close encounter in mid-April. As the two planets converge, the red color of Mars is becoming increasingly vivid to the naked eye. This is especially true because Mars is located not far from Spica, a blue-giant star of first magnitude in the constellation Virgo. Each evening when Mars and Spica rise side by side in the eastern sky, the red-blue contrast is eye-catching:

Astronomy professor Jimmy Westlake of Colorado Mountain College took the picture on March 20th, the first night of northern spring, and labeled it to show not only "ruddy Mars and icy-blue Spica," but also two nearby space rocks.

"This spring, Mars is looping through the stars of Virgo alongside the large asteroids Ceres and Vesta," explains Westlake. "All three reach opposition next month: Mars on April 8th, Vesta on April 13th, and Ceres on April 15th. Vesta, the nearer and more reflective of the two, appears about a magnitude brighter than Ceres. Both are within easy grasp of binoculars."

Look for Mars and Spica rising in the east after sunset, around 9 pm local time. A backyard telescope pointed at Mars will show you more than a red dot. Mars's north polar cap, surface features and clouds are being photographed by amateur astronomers around the world as the red planet grows larger in the eyepiece every night.

Browse the gallery for examples: Realtime Mars Photo Gallery
www.spaceweather.com

CHRISTMAS CONJUNCTION:

23/12/2013

According to some scholars, the Star of Bethlehem might have been a close encounter between Venus and Jupiter. The two brightest planets in the night sky, merged, would have made a spectacle of Biblical proportions. This Christmas, NASA's STEREO-B probe is observing a conjunction of three planets--Venus, Earth and Jupiter.

UPDATED: Instead of Jupiter and Venus merging, however, the combined planets are Jupiter and Earth:

IMAGE 22 December 2013

UPDATED IMAGE 23 December 2013

Unlike conjunctions of the distant past, this one includes our home planet. STEREO-B is located on the far side of the sun where it can look back and see Earth along with other worlds in the Solar System. Only NASA's twin STEREO probes, equipped with their high dynamic-range Heliospheric Imagers, can witness this kind of conjunction.

From STEREO-B's point of view, Earth and Jupiter are less than 0.5 degrees apart, while all three planets fit in a circle 3 degrees in diameter. This meeting is not nearly as tight as the putative Star of Bethlehem conjunction ~2000 years ago. At that time Venus and Jupiter could have been as little as 6 arcseconds (0.00166 degrees) apart. Nevertheless, the ongoing conjunction is still a beauty. Stay tuned for updates as the three planets converge.

UPDATE: From STEREO-B's point of view, Earth and Jupiter are so close together that the spacecraft's Heliospheric Imager can barely tell the two apart. Venus is only 2 degrees from the Earth-Jupiter pair, so this is actually a 3-way conjunction. www.spaceweather.com

Notes:   [Messenger Spirit]
In ancient Mesopotamia the planets were seen as gods in their own right. The planet Jupiter was known as Neberu (Nibiru?) and associated with the god Marduk. He was the patron god of Babylon, and considered equivalent to the older Sumerian god Enlil, the king of the gods, and hence associated with rulership and wisdom. In the Jewish cabbala, Jupiter is the fourth sphere, Mercy (Chesed). Chesed also lies on the pillar of creation between Chokmah (pure creative power) and Netzach (individualised images), representing archetypal ideas.   _http://www.skyscript.co.uk/jupitermyth.html

Venus in myth is the goddess of love. In the Jewish Cabbala, Venus is the seventh sphere: Victory or Netzach. Situated at the base of the pillar of action, Netzach manifests the creative power in emotion and instinct, and all human creativity, both sexual and imaginative The latter includes the arts, and also the god-forms of polytheism, created by man in his own image, yet nevertheless reflecting something of the nature of the universe. Both desire and imagination are to some extent superficial. The term 'glamour' originally meant a magic illusion cast upon something, and the victory of Netzach involves triumphing over the glamour of its outer manifestations to reach that which they symbolise. An ancient text calls Netzach the Hidden Intelligence, "because its brilliant outpouring is received by those spiritual virtues which are seen, in the ecstasy of faith, only by the initiated".
http://www.skyscript.co.uk/venusmyth.html

MORNING PLANETS:

5/8/2013

If you wake up before sunrise this week, look east. Three planets are preceding the sun into the dawn sky: Jupiter, Mars, and Mercury. Stephen Mudge photographed the trio (and the visiting crescent Moon) rising over Brisbane, Australia, on August 4th:

"I also created a stack of images taken every three and a half minutes as they rose," says Mudge. "All exposures were 4 seconds with a Canon 50D and 15-85mm lens at f/5.6 and 400 iso."

The crescent Moon has spent the past few mornings planet-hopping from Jupiter to Mars to Mercury. Next up: Venus. The Moon will move past the sun this week and pop up in the evening sky for a loose conjunction with Venus on August 9th and 10th. Browse the gallery for images. www.spaceweather.com