Here’s a lovely picture sent by Arvind Paranjpye of the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics in Pune. Arvind has done a little computer graphic to show us what the western sky will look like on December one when Venus, Jupiter and the Moon come together in a celestial triangle. He tells us that it isn’t such a rare event though. What makes it a pretty picture is that it looks like a smiley pasted on the evening sky!
This is what Arvind has to add:
“As the Venus, the goddess of love and beauty, is climbing above the horizon with Jupiter, the King of the Gods, inching towards it, on the evening of December one, we will be presented with an amazing sight when the Moon joins them. This is computer graphic artist’s (mine) simulation of how the sky will look at about 7 p.m. Later that night the moon passes right through the gap between the planets but then the trio will be below the horizon.
It will be a trivial matter for one to photograph these heavenly bodies with a simple digital camera. And therefore one might start to take photographs on November 30 and continue till December 2. This is not such a rare event. One of the memorable events was on April 23, 1998 when the moon actually crossed over them, the event astronomers call Occultation."
So we’ll all watch out! Send us your pictures of the real event (s.priyadarshini@nature.com) and we will put up the best here.
Vishwanath Bhagwat from Pune managed to click a couple of lovely pictures despite the cloud cover throughout the event. These pictures are very close to Arvind’s graphics. Here’s what Vishwanath has to say:
“These photos are not the best, but this is all that could be seen from Pune due to the depressing cloud cover. These photos were taken between 6:30 p.m. and 6:50 p.m. from the HDFC Colony in Chinchwad, Pune. One was taken with a 50 mm lens and other with a 200 mm lens.”
