February 22, 2024: Look for the morning Venus-Mars conjunction before sunrise through a binocular. After sundown find Jupiter and the moon.
by Jeffrey L. Hunt
Chicago, Illinois: Sunrise, 6:37 a.m. CST; Sunset, 5:32 p.m. CST. Check local sources for sunrise and sunset times. Times are calculated by the US Naval Observatory’s MICA computer program.
Summaries of Current Sky Events
Summary for Venus as a Morning Star, 2023-24
Here is today’s planet forecast:
Morning Sky
Morning Moon
An hour before sunrise, the bright gibbous moon, 96% illuminated, is in the west-northwest nearly 20° to the lower right of Regulus. The star is over 10° above the west cardinal direction. The moon reaches the Full moon phase, this month named the Snow Moon, at 6:30 a.m. CST in two mornings, before moonset in the Central Time Zone and locations farther westward in the Americas.
Morning Venus-Mars Conjunction
Venus rises sixty-seven minutes before daybreak. At forty minutes before the sun peeks above the east-southeast horizon, the planet is less than 5° above the horizon. Find a clear view in the planet’s direction.
Ten minutes later, find the Venus-Mars conjunction through a binocular. Venus is visible without an optical assist, but Mars is considerably dimmer. The gap between them is 0.6°, with Mars to Venus’ lower right. The planets appear close together in the sky, but they are more than 70 million miles apart in space, less than Earth’s distance from the sun.
The next Venus-Mars conjunction occurs January 7, 2026, although this meeting occurs near the sun. This is followed by a triple conjunction, a series of three meetings, beginning in the evening sky on November 24, 2027. The other two conjunctions – June 14, 2028, and September 8, 2028 – occur in the eastern morning sky before sunrise.
Mercury is near its superior conjunction on the far side of the sun. This occurs on the 28th.
Evening Sky
Saturn continues to slip into bright evening twilight and it is not visible.
Evening Moon
After sundown, the bright gibbous moon is less than 30° above the eastern horizon, and over 12° above Regulus. The moon is in the sky nearly all night. Find it in the south before midnight and over an hour after Jupiter sets.
Jupiter
As darkness falls, Jupiter is that bright star in the southwestern sky. The planet moves eastward in front of Aries. It is close to an imaginary line from Hamal to Menkar.
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