When Worlds Converge

Worlds are converging in the evening twilight. Venus and Jupiter now appear close together, and this past weekend the Moon began to join them, as a thin crescent below the bright pair of planets. This was the scene Sunday evening, the night before the conjunction of these three worlds reaches it peak on Monday night, described in my November 28 blog. It was a little cloudy but there's the waxing crescent Moon below the Venus-Jupiter pair.

It was a good weekend around here for viewing bright “double stars” in the twilight. Not only were Venus and Jupiter putting on a show, but the Space Shuttle and Space Station were also making some excellent passes across the sky. On Saturday, the night before the Shuttle landed, I caught it coming over in the evening sky, followed two minutes later by the Space Station. The two had undocked the day before, so on Saturday they appeared as two stars chasing each other, with the Shuttle leading the ISS.

In the time-lapse movie, the Shuttle and ISS appear as streaks due to the long exposures of each frame that make up the movie. The twin bright objects in the lower left, in the southwest, are Venus and Jupiter. Be sure to look Monday night when you’ll see the Moon close to the two planets, forming a triangle of the night sky’s three brightest objects.