Jupiter near moon right now

[HebaruSan]

There's a bright object next to the moon right now. Does anyone know what it is? I don't even astronomy. A google search said that Jupiter will dazzle us this month, is that it?

Edited March 22, 2016 by HebaruSan
the "bright object" has been identified

[GDJ]

I wish I could help. It's clouded over and snowing at the moment.

[HebaruSan]

OK, I think it must be Jupiter. This site has this image for today's date.

http://www.beckstromobservatory.com/whats-up-in-tonights-sky-2/

[Mitchz95]

It's definitely Jupiter. Phil Plait was tweeting about it, and it's also trending on Twitter right now.

[HebaruSan]

Just now, Mitchz95 said:

It's definitely Jupiter. Phil Plait was tweeting about it, and it's also trending on Twitter right now.

Heh, I don't twitter, I was just taking out the trash.

[Snark]

Rule of thumb: if it's startlingly bright, and near a mostly-full moon, then it has to be Jupiter.

Rationale: near mostly-full moon means almost directly opposite the Sun. Therefore it can't be Venus, which is always near the Sun. And the only other thing that's even vaguely that bright is Jupiter. (And if it's near a mostly-full moon and therefore almost directly opposite the Sun, that also means Jupiter is at its brightest, i.e. it's close to opposition, when it's closest to us.)

[Scotius]

Full cloud cover and passing rain showers - boy, am i glad that i decided not to buy a telescope. With usual weather in my area, it would only serve as an expensive space-waster and dust-gatherer. Lowlands in Central Europe are not a good environment for amateur astronomers.

[Basto]

I used my new telescope for the first time on Saturday and was looking at Jupiter.  My kids were a little disappointed because it didn't look like all the cool pictures you see from the Galileo mission. But it was just so cool to see all the Galilean moons and realize that it's not a picture.

[Snark]

1 hour ago, Basto said:

My kids were a little disappointed because it didn't look like all the cool pictures you see from the Galileo mission.

"Well, kids, I think it's possible that they spent a little bit more money on Galileo than Daddy did on this telescope." 

[problemecium]

Now that you guys remind me, I also own a telescope. I better go and get it so I can have a look too xD

[tater]

You can also tell by the orangish color it is Jupiter, at least if you live someplace decently dark/clear. Saturn is similar (maybe a little more yellow to my eye), but never nearly as bright.

[HebaruSan]

Follow-up astronomy question: Is there a better word for this than "near"? I don't want anyone to interpret the thread title in terms of orbits and proximity and have a panic attack.

[RainDreamer]

11 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

Follow-up astronomy question: Is there a better word for this than "near"? I don't want anyone to interpret the thread title in terms of orbits and proximity and have a panic attack.

I was thinking about that too. XD for a second I was thinking of a scenario where jupiter suddenly appears on moon orbit near it and earth.

[ProtoJeb21]

My skies are going to be mostly clear tonight. I'm going to do some observations and take some pictures. If I take good photos, I may post them.

[Exploro]

1 hour ago, tater said:

You can also tell by the orangish color it is Jupiter, at least if you live someplace decently dark/clear. Saturn is similar (maybe a little more yellow to my eye), but never nearly as bright.

To my eye Jupiter is always white in hue.

[tater]

Venus is blueish white to me... color can be pretty subjective, though.

[fredinno]

1 hour ago, RainDreamer said:

I was thinking about that too. XD for a second I was thinking of a scenario where jupiter suddenly appears on moon orbit near it and earth.

Imagine the size of Jupiter in the sky if it was physically NEAR the Earth-Moon system. Yikes.

[ProtoJeb21]

14 minutes ago, fredinno said:

Imagine the size of Jupiter in the sky if it was physically NEAR the Earth-Moon system. Yikes.

There's a video by YetiDynamics on YouTube that shows how large each major planet would be if put at Luna's semi-major axis (about 240,000 miles from Earth). Jupiter is there, of course, but poor Pluto isn't. Why don't astronomers consider it a planet? Pluto has a more diverse terrain than any other terrestrial object, even flippin' EARTH. It also is geologically active and has little in its orbital path. In fact, the New Horizons probe only detected 7 things in the Pluto system: Pluto itself, Charon, the four small moons, and a grain of dust (omg a new moon of Pluto! Let's name it Dust Hades! Okay, I'm kidding).

[fredinno]

6 minutes ago, ProtoJeb21 said:

There's a video by YetiDynamics on YouTube that shows how large each major planet would be if put at Luna's semi-major axis (about 240,000 miles from Earth). Jupiter is there, of course, but poor Pluto isn't. Why don't astronomers consider it a planet? Pluto has a more diverse terrain than any other terrestrial object, even flippin' EARTH. It also is geologically active and has little in its orbital path. In fact, the New Horizons probe only detected 7 things in the Pluto system: Pluto itself, Charon, the four small moons, and a grain of dust (omg a new moon of Pluto! Let's name it Dust Hades! Okay, I'm kidding).

Because there are at least 6 other Plutos in the Kuiper Belt, and Pluto is more like then than any of the other planets.

And Earth actually has more diverse terrain, if you count the stuff under the oceans.

[Snark]

5 hours ago, HebaruSan said:

Follow-up astronomy question: Is there a better word for this than "near"? I don't want anyone to interpret the thread title in terms of orbits and proximity and have a panic attack.

"subtends a small angle from..."

"is at a very similar right ascension and declination to..."

...I kinda think "near" rolls more nicely off the tongue. 

[StrandedonEarth]

5 hours ago, HebaruSan said:

Follow-up astronomy question: Is there a better word for this than "near"? I don't want anyone to interpret the thread title in terms of orbits and proximity and have a panic attack.

I think the term the pros use is "conjunction," as in, "Jupiter is in conjunction with the Moon." I thought the same thing too, that this could cause a panic with people thinking "OMG Jupiter is gonna crash into the Moon!!"  Never mind that we'd get the mother of all high tides first, if that was about to happen.

[lajoswinkler]

18 hours ago, HebaruSan said:

Follow-up astronomy question: Is there a better word for this than "near"? I don't want anyone to interpret the thread title in terms of orbits and proximity and have a panic attack.

Apparently near. Or in apparent proximity. Or ostensibly near.

[ProtoJeb21]

20 hours ago, fredinno said:

Because there are at least 6 other Plutos in the Kuiper Belt, and Pluto is more like then than any of the other planets.

And Earth actually has more diverse terrain, if you count the stuff under the oceans.

1. Only Eris and Makemake are Pluto-like; Haumea is nothing but a shiny oversized football, and all those objects like Sedna and Orcus are less than 1,000 miles across. Also, Eris seems to have a more cleared out orbit than any other dwarf planet...except Pluto.
2. I guess you have a point there, but I got that info from a scientific paper.

So for an update on last night's observing, Jupiter looked really nice. All 4 moons were visible (Europa was trying to hide...sneaky rat), along with the planet's cloud belts. I also viewed Luna, because why not? That's when, on three separate occasions that night, I saw three small black dagger-shaped objects fly in front of Luna. They flew over the SAME regions with the SAME speed and SAME path. I also caught one on video! Weird...

[fredinno]

31 minutes ago, ProtoJeb21 said:

1. Only Eris and Makemake are Pluto-like; Haumea is nothing but a shiny oversized football, and all those objects like Sedna and Orcus are less than 1,000 miles across. Also, Eris seems to have a more cleared out orbit than any other dwarf planet...except Pluto.
2. I guess you have a point there, but I got that info from a scientific paper.

So for an update on last night's observing, Jupiter looked really nice. All 4 moons were visible (Europa was trying to hide...sneaky rat), along with the planet's cloud belts. I also viewed Luna, because why not? That's when, on three separate occasions that night, I saw three small black dagger-shaped objects fly in front of Luna. They flew over the SAME regions with the SAME speed and SAME path. I also caught one on video! Weird...

Yeah, I was more talking about pluto-sized objects in the Kuiper Belt. These iceballs formation processes and properties are much more similar to each other than any of the planets.

[Findthepin1]

I would look but I am in the beginning of a large blizzard. So, nope.

Seems every time an astronomy event happens I have bad weather. XD