Did You See the Feb 1 Conjunction?

Posted by Kelly Whitt Feb 1, 2008

Was anyone able to get up early enough this morning and see the Venus/Jupiter conjunction? If you did see it, feel free to share your description with us in the discussion section or send me a picture and I'll post it on the Best Planetary Conjunctions of 2008 page.

As for me, I think I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen the sky so far this year. We've had an active winter as far as weather is concerned. From record high temperatures causing all our snow to melt (and thus produce heavy fog and no chance of seeing the stars) to rain and snow. But mostly this winter has just been a gray pall overhead. There was one evening last month when I turned off the lights in the house before bed and was startled by the bright light outside. It was the moon. I hadn't seen it in so long I had almost forgotten how its light can brighten a snowy white landscape.

The few clear days and nights we've had have coincided with frigid temperatures, including wind chills in the -30s. Which is typical for winter weather. Cloud cover insulates the air below while colder nights are those when the sky is clear and all the heat is radiating back out into space.

I don't know about you, but I hope that spring comes soon!