Moon, Venus Jupiter Will Line Up Tonight

Tonight we'll have the Moon, Venus and Jupiter lining up in the evening twilight sky, with a 9% crescent moon about 9% high in the sky around 9 pm (in a mid-California latitude).

Yosemite Valley isn't normally where I would go to see expansive views of the night sky, but on February 24, 2012 I was fortunate to arrive at Sentinel Bridge over the Merced River right before the moon set behind the valley rim, with Venus and Jupiter lined up above. I was able to capture this frame with the moon and Venus reflected.

Tomorrow evening the moon will be brighter and set later, forming a triangle with Jupiter and Venus.  With the evening sky also darker, it will be reminiscent of the Venus, Jupiter Moon triangle I caught last August:

Photos of the Moon, Venus and Jupiter Conjunction August 23, 2014
http://activesole.blogspot.com/2014/08/photos-of-moon-venus-jupiter-conjunction.html

Here's a photo of those three members of our solar system rising on the eastern horizon:

Then Saturday night the moon will be a brighter, wider crescent, and set later in a flatter triangle configuration, more reminiscent of this one earlier this year:

Crescent 9% moon set tonight, then Venus, Jupiter. Seen in Feb video w/Mars: http://t.co/2U0lvFpySU #astronomy pic.twitter.com/GwA8WbF5z0

— Jeff Sullivan Photo (@JeffSullPhoto) June 18, 2015

The easiest event of the next 3 nights to catch with earthly terrain will be the more linear configuration tonight, while twilight light still lights up your foreground landscape.

At the very end of the month, on the night of June 30, Venus and Jupiter will pass within 1/3 of a degree of each other, less than the diameter of the moon.  It will be similar to the conjunction (appulse) that I caught last year on August 18 on my Canon 70 with EF 70-200 mm lens and 2X teleconverter, but this time Venus will appear as a crescent.