Jupiter and Neptune

Just an FYI...

Jupiter and Neptune are near neighbors in the morning sky for the next month or so, with May 28/29 marking their closest approach to one another (about one-half degree of spearation, if I remember correctly). The Sky and Telescope website has nice charts.

Duane

Thanks for the mention of the Jupiter/Neptune conjunction, Duane. Below is a graphic I created to illustrate the total occultation of Neptune by Jupiter in 1613. I’ve employed a fictional X-ray vision to show where Neptune was behind Jupiter. Galileo missed an opportunity to become the first person to witness a mutual occultation or transit between planets. Of course, Neptune had not yet been discovered. Although Galileo had marked it as a star on his diagrams of Jupiter and its satellites.

Actually, only one person has ever reported witnessing a similar event. That was John Bevis at the Royal Greenwich Observatory who in 1737 observed Venus while it was occulting Mercury. He missed the actual immersion due to passing clouds, and the pair set before emersion. Further down is my illustration of that event, again employing a fictional X-ray vision.