Venus is still close to Jupiter, which it passed on November 24, and when the Moon reappears in the evening sky and comes past them a close grouping is formed.
See the end note about enlarging illustrations.
It will qualify as a “trio,” a grouping inside a circle with diameter less than 5°. The circle is tightest (4.3°) on November 28, Thursday, at 12 Universal Time. That’s noon in Britain, 7 a.m. in eastern North America, 4 a.m. in the Pacific time zone. So at that time the trio will be in mid-daylight for Britain, underground for America.
The best you can do is take a look soon after sunset on Wednesday Nov. 27. The trio hasn’t formed yet because the Moon is still coming up. In fact this is one of the Young Moons very challenging though perhaps not impossible to see. It will be 32 hours “old,” that is, past its New Moon phase of Nov. 26. That is its age at the time and location of the picture. It was an hour younger when this stage of dusk passed over the Eastern time zone. And on the evening of Nov. 28 it will be a day older, easier to see, but past Venus and Jupiter.
In the picture, the Moon is exaggerated twice in size. The arrows through the planets and Sun show their motion, against the starry background, over a span of 5 days. You can see that Venus is moving east much faster than distant Jupiter, and faster than the Sun, because traveling out toward its greatest eastern elongation on 2020 March 24.
The solstice point marked in the picture, which Venus passed a couple of days ago and Jupiter will pass in a couple of days, is the southernmost point on the ecliptic, which the Sun reaches at the December solstice.
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ILLUSTRATIONS 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). Other methods have been suggested, such as dragging the image to the desktop and opening it in other ways.
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As always, Guy, I appreciate your reminders and explanations of these Sky events, especially bright conjunctions, and even more so when the Crescent Moon joins in. I was looking forward to this event, especially since I haven’t seen one for a while, but, unfortunately, we were clouded out in Tucson, Arizona USA over the last two nights. Maybe tonight will be clear. it is Thanksgiving Day in the US today and I am thankful for beautiful conjunctions of planets in Earth’s sky.
I was pleasantly surprised to see the waning crescent* Moon below Mercury, Mars, and Spica Monday morning around 0615 PST, less than 25 hours before new Moon. That part of the ecliptic (through Virgo and Libra) rises steeply from the horizon here at 38 degrees north latitude. The Moon was a razor-thin crescent holding a ghostly orb of faint Earthshine.
The ecliptic in Ophiuchus and Sagittarius, where Jupiter, Venus and Saturn are hanging out, rises at a shallow angle from the horizon, so even though on Wednesday evening the waxing crescent Moon will be farther from the Sun than she was on Monday morning, she’ll be lower in the sky, so harder to see. (Plus, we’re finally getting a good rain storm here on the northern California coast, so we won’t see much anyway.)
During the past week I’ve seen all the major planets, the Moon, and the asteroid Vesta between sunset and dawn in one night, with naked eye or binoculars. I’ve scored several “solar system bingos” during this time. Once the waxing crescent Moon is visible this feat will again be possible.
*Guy would prefer the term “decrescent”.
Your Old Moon observation: Nov 25 Mon 14:15
New Moon: Nov 26 Tue 15:07
You might send your description to whoever at Sky & Telescope now stores Young and Old Moon sightings, to see how close it is to the record. I’m afraid I’ve lost track of that thread.
I don’t think it was close to a record. I think that people have seen the Moon within 13 or 14 hours of new. A few years ago Thierry Legault took a photo of the exactly new Moon, during a month when the new Moon was farthest from the ecliptic.
We had a break in the clouds and rain yesterday evening. The sky was clear enough to see Venus and Jupiter, but I couldn’t see the Moon.