Jupiter conjunction with the moon on 10/26/09, 7pm, shot from the ATMoB observatory, Nikon P5100, 26mm, f/5.3, 1/60 second, ISO 800.

Conjunction: (n) \k?n-j??(k)-sh?n\ – an apparent meeting or passing of two or more celestial bodies in the same degree of the zodiac.

In astronomy conjunctions happen all the time, from our point of view here on Earth. Of course the Moon really isn’t much closer to Jupiter than it was last night, or even last month, relatively speaking. In fact, at the time this picture was taken, the Moon was 403,071km from Earth while Jupiter, a whopping 800,000,000km give or take a hundred million.

For scale, the moon is about 1/2 degree in apparent diameter (that would be top to bottom in this picture) and Jupiter lies about 3 degrees to its East.

Just thought I’d share – good night!

Bruce