Astronomy Picture of the Day: Venus and Jupiter Are Close

The picture doesn't do it justice. In a telescope, at low-mid magnification, you could see both planets at once during the conjunction yesterday. The brightness difference was astounding, far greater than what any picture could show. Venus was almost annoyingly bright, this blazing white form with the brightness of a distant welding torch, whereas Jupiter was its usual mellow pale butter-yellow, like a paper lantern with a wax candle inside. Both had about the same apparent size, with Jupiter round as usual, while Venus had a very pronounced crescent.

It really shows their different distances to the Sun, and the very different amounts of illumination they receive.

Here's how you can automatically set this and other APOD images as Twitter banner image daily http://compixels.com/19350/automatically-change-twitter-head...

Venus appears to be the only thing keeping Mars and Jupiter from going to war.

Well, that and the asteroid belt.

The actual idea I want to bring here: https://twitter.com/raymondh/status/616082619319476224

> Earthlings, go outside tonight and look at the rare and spectacular conjunction of Venus and Jupiter (about one-third of a degree apart).

Venus is the brightest object (after Moon and Sun) in the sky now. Just nearby is Jupiter (very bright too). You can observe this spectacular view all summer long.

More: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ppuCZR8Mkw

http://earthsky.org/tonight/watch-the-great-race-of-venus-an...

So you know now, what was that enormously bright star in the sky!