Over the next two months the two brightest visual planets will dance in the sunset. Jupiter and Venus make for a brilliant pairing. With Venus shining at -4.3 and Jupiter somewhat dimmer at magnitude -1.9, the two are already quite obvious in the evening sky. Jupiter will swing just north of Venus approaching to within 0.3° on June 30th. The pair will separate slowly after that and disappear into the sunset glow together.
Around June 30th the two will be easily close enough to bee seen together in the low power view of amateur telescopes. It makes a fascinating sight to see the two planets together in the eyepiece.
As an added bonus the planet Mercury will join the pair around August 3rd, the trio forming a nice triangle of bright planets low in the sunset.
