Since before the first of the year the bright planet Venus has been dazzling the western Marshall sky, but we’re approaching Venus’ grand finale in our evening sky for 2020. Before saying goodbye, Venus and the planet Mercury will have a super close conjunction all this week during evening twilight in the very low western sky near the horizon. Mercury, the closest planet to the sun, isn’t nearly as bright as Venus, but you should be able to easily spot it with the unaided eye. Next Thursday evening, Mercury will be less than two degrees to the lower left of Venus, and next Friday evening, it will be perched less than two degrees to the upper left of Venus. Don’t miss it!

There’s also a really cool planet show going on in the early morning pre-twilight sky. Set the alarm for 4 a.m. After you shake off the cobwebs, step outside and you’ll be greeted with celestial “cat’s eyes” in the low south-southeast sky. The two super-bright side-by-side stars are actually the largest planets of our solar system, Jupiter and Saturn. They’re the closest they’ve been to each other in the sky in 20 years, and as 2020 continues they’ll get even closer. As it is right now it’s possible to get both planets in the same field of view with most pairs of binoculars.

Even with average binoculars you should be able to resolve the disk of Jupiter, and also easily see up to four of Jupiter’s largest moons that resemble faint stars on either side of the planet. I say up to four because you may not see that many at any given time. They orbit Jupiter in periods of two to 17 days. So, on any given night or morning in this case, the moons will be lined up in different positions, and at times one or more of the moons may be behind Jupiter or camouflaged in front of it. Saturn will look like a bright oval-shaped star. In most binoculars you just can’t resolve the separation between Saturn’s ring system and the planet itself. However, you should be able to spot Titan, Saturn’s brightest moon.

With a small to moderate telescope, your view of the giant planets dramatically improves. You should easily see Saturn’s ring system much more clearly and even a few more of its much fainter moons. With Jupiter, you’ll see at least some of its brighter cloud bands. There’s also a chance you’ll see Jupiter’s great red spot, a huge storm swirling on the planet.

No matter how you’re observing Jupiter and Saturn, either with a telescope, binoculars, or just your God-given eyes, know that Jupiter is 88,000 miles in diameter, more than 10 times that of Earth. If Jupiter were hollow, you could fit more than 1,200 Earth’s inside it. Saturn isn’t as large but it has its vast ring system, over 120,000 miles in diameter. While it may be wide, it’s no more than a couple of miles thick at the most.

As close as Jupiter and Saturn appear to be in the sky this week, they’re nowhere each other physically. Jupiter is just over 418 million miles from Earth. Saturn is over 883 million miles away. The two planets just happen to be in nearly the same line of sight. All planets, including the Earth, orbit the sun in the same orbital plane. Because of that, planets follow a similar path among the backdrop of stars as they make their circuit around the sun, just not at the same speed. The farther out a planet is, the longer it takes it to orbit the sun. Jupiter takes 12 years, but Saturn takes 29 years. About every 20 years the two planets catch up to each other in our sky, as they are this year.

The next brightest “star” you can see to the left of the Jupiter-Saturn dynamic duo has a definite reddish glow to it. That’s actually Mars. The good news is that all three of these planets will be available in the early evening sky by mid-to-late July, and all three of them will be closer to Earth and even brighter in the heavens. In fact, next October Mars will be a little less than 39 million miles away, the closest it will be to Earth until 2035. It should be quite a show.

Comet Swan is brightening!

Your biggest reward for dragging yourself out of bed early this week, however, could be the chance of seeing a comet, maybe even with the naked eye. It’s known formally as Comet C/2020 F8, but its nickname is Comet Swan. Most of this week it will be less than 70 million miles from Earth. Comets are basically dirty snowballs that mainly orbit the sun in very elongated orbits. When they start getting close to the sun, as Comet Swan is now, they partially melt producing a wide coma cloud of water vapor and gases laced with dust. They also sprout tails that point away from the sun.

As it is with most comets there’s no guarantee you’ll see it, but it’s worth trying. The uncertainty of seeing it is compounded by the fact that it rises above the northeast horizon less than two hours before sunrise. I think your best chance of seeing it will be between 4:15 and 4:55 a.m.

Using a compass, face the northeast point on the horizon and look for the comet around 10 degrees above that horizon. That’s roughly about the width of your fist held at arm’s length. You may see the comet with the naked eye, but you may have to use binoculars. If you see Comet Swan it will resemble a fuzzy star with a tail pointing to the upper right. After about 5 a.m. they’ll probably be too much bright twilight to spot it. You don’t want to be looking for Comet Swan after 5:30, especially with binoculars or a small telescope. Sunrise is shortly after that and it’s very dangerous for your eyes if you catch even a quick glimpse of the sun’s disk. It’s not worth it!

Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and professional broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis/St. Paul.