Conjunction between the Moon and Venus
2017 Jul 20
Dominic Ford – originally published on In-The-Sky.org
The Moon and Venus will make a close approach, passing within 2°42' of each other.
From London (click to change), the pair will be visible in the dawn sky. They will rise at 02:13 (BST), 2 hours and 55 minutes before the Sun, and attain an altitude of 20° above the eastern horizon before fading from view as dawn breaks at around 04:40.
At the moment of closest approach, the Moon will be at mag -10.5, and Venus at mag -4.5, both in the constellation Taurus.
The pair will be too widely separated to fit within the field of view of a telescope, but will be visible to the naked eye or through a pair of binoculars.
The precise positions of the Moon and Venus at the moment of closest approach will be as follows:
| Object | Right Ascension | Declination | Constellation | Magnitude | Angular Size |
| The Moon | 05h06m00s | +18°01' | Taurus | -10.5 | 32'57"4 |
| Venus | 05h04m30s | +20°42' | Taurus | -4.5 | 15"6 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 40° from the Sun, which is in Gemini at this time of year.
The details of this observing event were provided courtesy of In-The-Sky.org
.