Great pumpkin in the sky

Jupiter will be at opposition on November 3, at 5h by Universal Time. Here is the giant planet climbing over the eastern horizon. At midnight it will be at its highest, crossing the meridian over the horizon’s south point.

See the end note about enlarging illustrations.

For the location and time of our picture, the evening of the previous date is nearest to the moment of opposition. Jupiter, appearing to move in the retrograde (westward) direction as we overtake it, will 3 hours later be nearest to the point we mark as the “anti-Sun2.

Jupiter (the god) stars in our cover picture for Astronomical Calendar 2024, the theme of which is one of his adventures down in the world of mortals.

For an outer planet, opposition is the center of the time when it is nearest and appears brightest and largest. Because Jupiter goes around the Sun in about 12 years, each time we overtake it at opposition it has moved on to the next of the 12 zodiacal constellations; at last year’s opposition it was inPisces, and now we see it n Aries.

To quote the “Jupiter” section of Astronomical Calendar 2023: “At opposition on Nov. 3, Jupiter is fairly well north. Being now 10 months past perihelion, it is not quite as near as at the previous opposition. Its rather oblate (flattened) globe appears 49.4″ wide, and shines at magnitude -2.9, about as bright as it can be.”

__________

This weblog maintains its right to be about astronomy or anything under the sun.

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” or “Open image in new tab”, 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.