Posted on 02/17/2019 9:14:04 AM PST by BenLurkin
Monday morning (Feb.18), you'll be able to watch two planets that will pass in the dawn. One planet is very slowly descending into the dawn twilight and into eventual obscurity, while the other will become increasingly prominent in the weeks and months to come.
The planets in question are Venus and Saturn. Look for them around 5:45 a.m. local time, low above the southeast horizon. Brilliant Venus, shining with a steady silvery-white glow, will be passing about 1.1 degree above and to the left of the much dimmer and yellower Saturn. If you have a telescope you might want to try to get a view of its breathtakingly beautiful rings, although its low altitude just 10 degrees above the horizon will be a bit of a handicap since atmospheric turbulence can make for a rather unstable image.
The tilt of the rings was at a maximum in October 2017, but they are still "wide-open" from our earthly perspective, some 24.5 degrees from edgewise. As for Venus, it displays a rather small gibbous shaped disk, 69 percent illuminated by the sun. Venus outshines Saturn's larger but duller disk and rings by some 70-fold.
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
Thanks fieldmarshaldj, but wth, there's no opportunity here for a Uranus joke!
All we’re going to see is snow.
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