Pluto at conjunction- north of Sun

Event Date: December 30th

Time: 12:09(.30) PM

Brief

   Pluto has been shown in my series as a late-morning planet, an early-morning one, a late evening riser,  an early evening riser, and now, rising at about the time of the Sun.  The planet is nearly at conjunction with the Sun, and will not be visible again easily through a big enough telescope, until the middle of next year.  Since the Sun will move north with every passing day between now and the June solstice, Pluto's southern declination will mean that it will be rising only a very short time before the Sun, and be blocked by the Sun's glare as well.  Here is the sky darkened, showing Pluto transiting, the Sun, meridian, and celestial grid.  By darkening the sky, it also lets me include the orbit of the dwarf planet.

click on image to enlarge: courtesy of Starry Night Pro Plus, version 6.4.3, by Simulation Curriculum Corp.

Detailed

   As we look above, as a reminder, Pluto's unusual inclination helps keep the planet north of the Sun.  It will be several more years for Pluto to reach the descending node leading to some very close separations with the Sun.  This is the only way for the the Sun to occult Pluto, although there is nothing special about such when something as bright as the Sun covers something up so much smaller and exponentially dimmer.  I am including this topic anyway, to show that the Sun catches up with the outer planets a little over once a year.  With Mars, it takes about 2 years; Jupiter takes about 14 months,; Saturn takes a little less time than Jupiter, considering that Saturn doesn't cover as much spacial ground.  As for even slower moving Uranus and Neptune, the oppositions happen just over a year apart, since Earth doesn't have to move too much in its orbit to catch up with these two planets.