Six Eclipses, Three Supermoons and A Rare ‘Great Solstice Appulse’: A Skywatcher’s Guide To 2020

You have a brand-new, clean calendar to hang on the wall for 2020. What are you going to write on it? First, you'll want to mark the celestial events of the year that you don't want to miss. Depending on where you are, or where you are willing to travel, you can take in two spectacular solar eclipses (one during a solstice) and four lunar eclipses in 2020. But what's a "real solstice appulse"?

Here’s something that’s not happened since the year 2000, and won’t happen again until 2040. On December 21, 2020—the exact date of the solstice—Saturn and Jupiter will appear incredibly close together (just 0.06º apart) right after sunset. Astronomer’s call this an “appulse”or a “great conjunction.” It will all be a matter of perspective; Jupiter and Saturn will actually be 733 million miles from each other, as well as being 887 million miles and 1620 million miles from Earth, respectively. However, from Earth, the giant gas planets will appear almost as one.

The schedule for stargazing in 2020 is at Forbes.


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There's not a lot of publicity around the Quadrantid meteor shower because it's peak is very narrow: 2-6am, Saturday, January 4th, and the best views are in the Northern Hemisphere. But the 4th is a moonless night and the Quadrantids peak at 50-100 an hour. And timing is always a bit iffy. Could be later, could be earlier. If one happens to be out, maybe in a hot tub, around midnight, look to the Northeast just below the Big Dipper.
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