An important and beautiful coming attraction in your night sky will be the planetary conjunction of Venus and Jupiter in mid-March. They are gorgeous with the moon this week. Look to the west after sunset to see them in your sky tonight and until mid-March as they move closer together. By march 15th they will be the closest to one another as Venus passes in front of Jupiter.
I had friends over for dinner last night and the beautiful celestial sight was discussed. I was pleased to learn they noticed what was happening in the night sky. Most people pay little attention to the movements of the planets. However, the weather has been crisp and clear allowing them to have their attention diverted to the sky. My friends were amazed at how bright the two planets were compared to the background stars. We will watch them move over the next few weeks. Hopefully I’ll get some photographs for you. If you get some photos, send them to me at this site. Let me know your thoughts and impressions of this celestial occurrence.
In the meantime, check out the “Astronomy Picture of The Day” (APOD) site on the Internet. The one for today discusses this event. The URL is: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
If you don’t have APOD bookmarked in your favorites to view every day, you have been missing out of some of our Heavenly Father’s great creations.
What is so neat is, this month you will be able to see an event in the sky that ancient astronomers living at the time of Jesus Christ would have deemed important.
Keep looking up!