Here is Saturday morning’s sky.
See the end note about enlarging diagrams.
Venus passed Saturn on February 18, and now is just less than a degree and a half north of Pluto – not that you will be able to see that extremely faint dwarf planet.
And here is Madeline unrolling the Zodiac Wavy Chart–
–to show you how the planetary groupings become, from month to month, more separated from the rising Sun and therefore easier to see.
While Venus hurries toward her exit from this scene, Jupiter slowly closes the gap to Saturn. The next of the twenty-year Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions will come at the end of 2020.
Daniel Cummings has created a “User’s Guide” to my Wavy Chart. I am almost embarrassed by his enthusiasm; he draws out treasures that I scarcely knew were there. With deft surrealism he calls the chart a “skeleton key to the sky”, as if by fitting it into some center of gravity you could unlock the puzzle box of the solar system.
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DIAGRAMS in these posts are made with precision but have to be inserted in another format. You may be able to enlarge them on your monitor. One way: right-click, and choose “”View image””, then enlarge. Or choose “”Copy image””, then put it on your desktop, then open it. On an iPad or phone, use the finger gesture that enlarges (spreading with two fingers, or tapping and dragging with three fingers). I am grateful to know of what methods work for you.”
I’m getting caught up on Guy’s blog on a drizzly Sunday afternoon. The firewall at work still won’t let me go here. Maybe it’s a hint about my productivity. Anyway, thanks for the zodiac wavy chart, and the link to Daniel’s user guide. I hadn’t noticed the analemma until he pointed it out.
We would like you and Tilly to come visit so that you can do the “moon boogie” with us! Madeline loves going outside in the evening to look at the moon, and one night she began dancing, which started a tradition of dancing under the moon. (Meanwhile, I will work on learning about the phases of the moon from the zodiac wavy chart. Madeline might already know more than me.)
The Wavy Chart is the most beautiful and informative piece of functional art I’ve ever had the pleasure to own and I’m thrilled to see the guide by Daniel Cummings. Every time I look closely at it I see some new feature, some concept it shows, that I missed before. The effort you put into creating it is deeply appreciated; I hope to be buying one for 2020 at the end of this year!
Wonderful, Guy. Of course, I have been a user and fan of the Astronomical Calendar since the late ’70s. Thank you for all the years of astronomy…