Venus and Saturn much more separated

Event Date: January 17th

Time: 6:55(.56) AM

Brief

   During the fall, we watched Saturn rise shortly before the Sun, ahead of Venus.  Now, as the ringed planet rises four minutes earlier each evening, while Venus has had a rise-gap shrink with the later-rising Sun throughout the fall and early winter, the two planets are separated by a wide margin.  Also, Saturn rises early enough during morning hours (~1:30) to be at transit shortly before Sunrise about 5 1/2 hours later.  Venus however, rises only 63 minutes before the Sun, is is becoming a victim of the failing, east-sky geometry, which reaches its worst shortly before conjunction late this season.  

   Here are the two planets showing before the Sun rises, nearly 60º apart; much different than the 1/2º separation of the two on November 26th.

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

Detailed

   When we get Venus back into our evening skies late in the summer, not long before Saturn reaches conjunction, we will have another conjunction of the two.  However, they will not be as close as they were in November.  As a reminder, the closeness of planets as seen from here depends of their ecliptic latitude difference, and if they are near nodes for where their orbits cross.  If not the latter, than the ecliptic latitudes differ by default.  The Moon is close enough to us--and therefore apparently large enough--to easily occult a planet or bright star when the separation is close to none.  However, planets are only arc-seconds in angular size, with Jupiter the largest at about 50 arc-seconds at best when at opposition.  Therefore, an occultation or transit between two of them is extremely rare!