These always seem a little overblown. Jupiter was very nearly as bright last year.

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=magnitude+of+jupiter+se...

-2.92

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=magnitude+of+jupiter+au...

-2.86

So the ratio in brightness is

2.512 ^ 0.06 = 1.0567

If wolfram alpha is to be believed, it's going to be just about as bright next year.

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=magnitude+of+jupiter+oc...

The distance to Jupiter varies between very far and very, very far.

The article states "Around midnight, it will be directly overhead." This depends where you are, and it will not be true for most humanoids. From Washington, DC, for instance, it will be 45 degrees up from the horizon at midnight: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=jupiter+sky+position+fr...

From Oslo, Norway, a little under 9 degrees: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=jupiter+sky+position+fr...

If it's directly overhead on midnight (over the equator), it must be a Sun-Earth-Jupiter alignment, which makes sense as it is the closest distance between both planets in the Earth year.

When I was a kid in the 70s, I could distinguish a moon of Jupiter as a separate blip with my naked eye.

Really? That seems unlikely. Very few people have ever made such a claim, though it does seem that it could be possible.

http://www.denisdutton.com/jupiter_moons.htm

I was a keen astronomer as a kid, and later almost did my PhD in cosmology. So I know my way around the sky. Later I used to climb mountains. I was walking into the Himalya one time, in Nepal, sitting around drinking beers and observing the sky. It was the clearest sky I'd ever seen. There was so much stuff visible. So much, it made distinguishing the constellations harder than usual. Jupiter was in the sky that night and I have always told the story that it is the only time I've seen its moons with my naked eye.

I've never questioned that until now. But frankly that wasn't the most memorable part of the night, I didn't realise it was a rarity. If ever there was a time when you could use the word awesome that was it.

So, yup, I certainly believe it's possible. Just wish I had the eyes I had then.

Yeah, I get lots of people saying that. All I can say is, I was there, I could see it, my brothers and sisters could see it.

We used a telescope to spot, then when the moon was at its furthest distance, with the naked eye, could see a separate blip.

Lived on a farm in Iowa, nobody for miles, no lights to mess things up.

You know, what bugs me is, people talk and talk about this, write articles and posts, but nobody GOES OUTSIDE AND LOOKS! You think writing an article about it would be worth investing in an afternoon driving out of town to where it gets dark, tilting your head up at the sky, and squinting. But no, decades go by with no new info on the topic, people just repeating what amount to urban legends.

That's worth a submission, cryptoz.

Up-voting, not for the skepticism (which is easy), but for providing evidence that the skepticism might be wrong. Thanks for the interesting article.

This reminds me of an incident on Friday night: I noticed an unusually bright planet in the sky, and checked it out with Google Night Sky on my Android phone. When I zoomed in, the software showed the disc of Jupiter overlapping with Uranus. I sure was amazed!

I checked now, and the planet conjunction list at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conjunction_%28astronomy_and_as... indicates that this conjunction has happened several times recently, but won't be happening for a while now.

Checkout my Palo Alto viewing party using my company's event creation service: http://poig.com/pings/4c9798d0d4ac14411c00001f/

I'll be at Arastradero Preserve in the Palo Alto Hills tonight around 11PM with a telescope and some buddies. Exit off Page Mill from 280 and head west towards the hills. Take a RIGHT on Arastradero and drive up about a mile and take a right into the parking lot.

WE WILL HAVE A LIMITED SUPPLY OF SIMPLER TIMES BEER

Here's a case where I want to look at what you've posted, and I can't because you want me to login via Facebook first.

Anyway, have a great time, and I hope the vis is terrific.

I know! I'm going to have to do some tinkering to make the links public

Here's the link to the google map:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&...

Is there a good iPhone app that uses both the GPS and the Compass to do star finding and identification?

I'm using Planets, apparently it has 3 mil downloads and it's free

Installed... Thanks

I like http://www.gosoftworks.com/GoSkyWatch/GoSkyWatch.html (on my iPad).

I've got pUniverse and StarmapPro that I like. I just downloaded Planets, but haven't given it a try yet.

Thank you. There is a NASA app for iPad that could be useful as a learning aid.

In NYC it will appear as a stalled airplane between clouds.

And of course it is completely overcast here :(

Thanks, even more info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/