A stargazer’s Christmas dream

What many are calling the “Christmas Star” isn’t a star at all, two planets will create a unique conjunction at dusk on Monday, Dec. 21.

The winter solstice and shortest day of the year is when Jupiter and Saturn will appear so close together they will look like one entity.

“It will look very interesting to the naked eye,” veteran astronomer and Saukville native Jeff Setzer said. He is the longtime president of the Northern Cross Science Foundation, which meets at the Jim and Gwen Plunkett Observatory at Harrington Beach State Park in the Town of Belgium.

Many claim it’s the star of Bethlehem that the “wise men from the east” followed to visit baby Jesus.

The aligning of the planets isn’t all that rare. Jupiter catches up to Saturn every 20 years, but it has been 800 years since the phenomenon was seen by humans.

“Depending on where our orbit is and their orbits are, this is the closest they’ve been for a long time,” he said.

“It hasn’t happened technically since the 1600s, and when that happened they were too close to the sun to observe,” Setzer said.

That means the last time humans could see the two planets nearly aligning was the 13th century — a long time ago in a galaxy not so far away — so long ago that even most people in the Bible wouldn’t have lived to see it more than once.

The two planets — Jupiter at 547 million miles from earth and Saturn 1 billion miles away — have been moving toward each other the last few months, Setzer said.

Come Monday night, Setzer recommends going to a high spot to be able to see the sky right after sunset. The planets will be low in the southwestern sky.

“On that night, the two planets will be so close, visually, that you could barely fit a dime held on-edge at arm’s length between them,” Setzer posted on the Northern Cross Science Foundation’ Facebook page.

“The darker it gets the better, except they’re following the sun below the horizon so you don’t have a lot of time,” he said.

Setzer, a Saukville native who lives in West Bend, said he won’t be able to see the event from the deck in his backyard because trees will be in the way, so he will go somewhere else. 

He recommends taking a telescope or binoculars to a hill that overlooks a town.

The Harrington Beach State Park parking lot would be a prime viewing spot, he said.

A 50 or 75-power telescope will fit both planets into the same field of view. Binoculars of 7 or 10 power will split them, Setzer said.

Everyone in the U.S. will have a view of the Christmas Star, but it will be higher in the sky for those in the South since it’s in the southwestern sky. Setzer said even his friends in Germany will have a similar angle to see it.

“They’re not going to be super bright. Jupiter is fairly bright but Venus is brighter than both of them,” Setzer said.

Those taking photos may face a challenge.

“The lower things are in the sky, the more air you’re looking through and the less crisp they are,” Setzer said.

But, when two planets nearly line up once every several hundred years, “you take what you can get,” he said.

Setzer said he will view it and post about it on social media.

“It is a once-in-a-lifetime thing. Take the kids out. I would encourage that,” he said.

The planets will then start to move away from each other, which is still an interesting process to watch, he said.