Skyfold Planet Conjunctions and Best Evenings

Close pairings of the Moon and planets and their best evenings for the next months, as a calendar.

How it works

Finds every close approach of the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, the oppositions of Mars to Neptune and the greatest elongations of Mercury and Venus, checks whether you can see them in the evening or morning twilight at your place and exports them as an .ics calendar.

Apparent geocentric positions from the Skyfold ephemeris (VSOP87 planets with light time and aberration, ELP-2000/82 Moon); separations sampled every 12 hours (Moon pairs every 2 hours) and refined to the minute by golden-section search.
Oppositions: the planet’s ecliptic longitude differs from the Sun’s by 180°; greatest elongations: maxima of the Sun–planet angle for Mercury and Venus, east = evening sky.
Visible: at evening or morning civil twilight (Sun 6° down) the lower of the two objects stands at least 5° above the horizon and both are at least 12° from the Sun; the visible twilight closest to the event is suggested (with the separation at that moment), oppositions at the planet’s transit.
The 2026 results reproduce the published dates (Venus–Saturn 8 March, Venus–Jupiter 9 June 1.6°, Mercury–Jupiter 15 August, oppositions of Jupiter 10 January and Saturn 4 October).

Separations are geocentric; seen from your place the Moon shifts by up to 1° (parallax), so Moon pairings can look closer or wider, and close ones can become occultations for some regions.

Sources

Astronomical Algorithms, 2nd ed. (Meeus 1998) (Willmann-Bell)
VSOP87 planetary theory (Bretagnon & Francou 1988) (IMCCE)

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How to use Skyfold Planet Conjunctions and Best Evenings

List the close pairings of the Moon and planets, oppositions and greatest elongations for the next months, with the best time to look from your place.

What it is for

"Venus and Jupiter meet in the evening sky" is one of the prettiest sights anyone can see without a telescope, but news reports rarely tell you whether the pair is above your horizon, how high, and at what time. Many conjunctions also happen so close to the Sun that nobody sees them.

This tool scans the next months for close approaches of the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, for the oppositions of Mars to Neptune and for the greatest elongations of Mercury and Venus. For each event it checks evening and morning twilight at your place and suggests the visible twilight closest to the event, with the height and direction to look and how far apart the pair is at that moment. You can export everything as an .ics calendar.

Worked example

Utrecht (52.0907, 5.1214, Europe/Amsterdam), from 1 January 2026, 12 months, planet pairs and Moon pairs within 3°, only visible events.

The summary reports 28 events: 20 conjunctions and 8 planet highlights; 23 more events are left out because they are too close to the Sun or below the horizon in twilight.

Some lines from the table:

Venus and Saturn 0.9° apart, closest on 8 March at 14:16. Look on the evening of 8 March at 19:05: the pair is only 6° high in the west (azimuth 261°), still 0.9° apart.
Venus and Jupiter 1.6° apart, closest on 9 June at 21:48; at 22:46 that evening they stand 13° high in the north-west.
Moon and Mercury 0.1° apart on 19 February at 00:10 — but by the suggested evening of 18 February at 18:34 they are 2.9° apart, which the Apart then column makes clear.
Saturn at opposition on 4 October: up all night, highest at 01:35 at 40°.

How to read the result

Closest or exact is the moment of minimum separation (conjunctions) or of the event itself, in local time.
Separation is the smallest angle between the two objects as seen from the Earth's centre. A finger at arm's length covers about 1°.
From the Sun shows how far the pair is from the Sun; below 12° it is lost in the glare and left out.
When to look and Look at give the twilight to use; Apart then is the separation at that moment, because the Moon moves about half a degree per hour.
Altitude and Azimuth describe where to look (azimuth 270° is west).

Tips and common mistakes

Low events (5–10° high) need a flat horizon to the west or east; a hill or building hides them.
Mercury is only easy to see near its greatest elongations; the tool lists those dates too.
Raise the Moon limit to 5° if you want more Moon pairings, or switch the Moon off to keep only planet meetings.
The separation is geocentric. Seen from your place the Moon can shift by up to 1°, so very close Moon pairings may look wider or even become an occultation.
Import the .ics file: each event starts at the suggested viewing time with a reminder 30 minutes before.

FAQ

Why is a famous conjunction missing?

It is probably not visible from your place, too close to the Sun or outside your separation limit. Untick "Only events visible from this place" to see all of them.

What is an opposition?

The planet stands opposite the Sun: it rises at sunset, is up all night and is at its brightest and closest for the year.

How accurate are the dates?

The 2026 results match published dates, such as Venus–Jupiter on 9 June and Saturn's opposition on 4 October, to within minutes.

Can I look further ahead?

Yes, up to 24 months from the start date.

Guide last updated: November 8, 2026

For scripts and AI agents

JSON API: POST https://skyfoldconjunctions.usefulweb.app/api/v1/calculate (same calculation as this page)
Interface description: OpenAPI 3.1 · AI guide: llms.txt
MCP server (Streamable HTTP): https://skyfoldconjunctions.usefulweb.app/mcp · tool name skyfold_conjunctions

Example request

curl -s -X POST https://skyfoldconjunctions.usefulweb.app/api/v1/calculate \
  -H 'content-type: application/json' \
  -d '{"location":"52.0907, 5.1214","timeZone":"Europe/Amsterdam","startDate":"2026-01-01","months":12,"planetLimit":3,"moonLimit":3,"includeMoon":true,"visibleOnly":true}'

Feedback · ideas & bug reports welcome