Posted on: Saturday, November 6, 2004

Planets, moon, star converging over Isles

By Christie Wilson
Neighbor Island Editor

Three planets, the moon and a dazzling star from the constellation Virgo are converging in the eastern sky over Hawai'i.

Early risers may have noticed Venus and Jupiter, which yesterday morning appeared to be about as far apart from each other as the width of a pencil seen at arm's length. Venus is the brighter one.

The convergence does not have any particular significance to research astronomers, but it's rare when the planets appear so close together, said Carolyn Kaichi, manager of the Bishop Museum Planetarium. "It's kind of cool," she said. "Because Venus is so bright, it attracts people's eyes and we've been getting a lot of interested calls, and some weird calls too."

Despite appearances, the planets are nowhere near each other: Venus is 118 million miles from Earth and Jupiter is almost five times as distant at 580 million miles.

Over the weekend the two planets will pull a little farther apart, while the waning crescent moon passes into the same region of the sky. Meanwhile, a much dimmer Mars reappeared this week very low near the east-southeast horizon, and not far from Mars glows the bluish-white star Spica. Binoculars may be helpful in picking out both objects from the morning glow.

Early Tuesday morning, about 45 minutes before sunrise, Jupiter, Venus and the moon — the three brightest objects in the night sky — will form a triangle, with Spica and Mars positioned just above the horizon.

Another celestial attraction in November is the Leonid meteor shower. Kaichi said the best viewing will be after 10 p.m. Nov. 17 in the eastern sky. Astronomers are expecting a relatively sparse showing, with only 15 or 20 Leonids per hour in ideal dark-sky conditions, according to Sky & Telescope magazine.

Reach Christie Wilson at cwilson@honoluluadvertiser.com or (808) 244-4880.