<\/p>\n Jupiter<\/a> will be visible to the east at sunset tonight (Jan. 9) with the bright stars Castor<\/a> and Pollux<\/a> shining to its left, according to In-the-sky<\/a>. Throughout the evening hours on Jan. 9, Jupiter will be the brightest point of light in the night sky, until the waning crescent moon rises to usurp it in the hour following midnight for viewers in the U.S. The planet will officially reach opposition at 3:34 a.m. EST (0834 GMT) on Jan 10, when it will shine magnitude<\/a> -2.7.<\/p>\n You may like<\/p>\n Celestron NexStar 8SE<\/p>\n \n (Image credit: Celestron)<\/p>\n The Celeston NexStar 8SE has a huge 8-inch aperture which allows it to collect plenty of light to reveal stunning details in the atmospheric bands lining Jupiter’s stormy cloud tops. Check out our Celestron NexStar 8SE review<\/a> for a more detailed look at the easy going motorized telescope.<\/p>\n The moment of opposition coincides with when a planet draws near to its closest point to Earth in its orbit. As a result, Jupiter will appear brighter and subtly larger in the eyepiece of a telescope on Jan. 10, boasting an angular size of 45.6 arcseconds at opposition, as opposed to the 31.3 arcseconds it would occupy when furthest from Earth (when it would be hidden behind the sun). For context, the full moon takes up between 29.4 and 33.5 arcminutes, with each arcminute being the equivalent of 60 arcseconds.<\/p>\n Look to the eastern horizon at sunset on Jan. 10 to find Jupiter shining in the constellation Gemini<\/a>, with Orion the “hunter” to its right and the bright star Capella above. The gas giant<\/a> will arc high overhead before finally ending the night low on the western horizon as the sun rises on Jan. 11.<\/p>\n Jupiter was named after the king of the Roman pantheon of gods and it’s pretty easy to understand why. The gas giant makes for a dazzling astronomical target when viewed with the naked eye, which only gets more impressive when viewed through a telescope with an aperture of 4-inches (152 mm) or more, which helps reveal its colorful atmospheric cloud bands.<\/p>\n The four large Galilean moons<\/a> Io<\/a>, Europa<\/a>, Ganymede<\/a> and Callisto<\/a> will also be visible arrayed in a line formation extending either side of the gas giant on the night of Jan. 10.<\/p>\n \n A view of Jupiter (center) and Europa, Callisto (above), Io, Ganymede (below) as crescent moon sets over the San Francisco Bay on the first day of Eid al-Fitr as seen from Foster City in California, United States on April 10, 2024. (Image credit: Getty Images)<\/p>\n If you’re using a telescope with a larger aperture, you may want to try viewing the planet with a special astronomy filter screwed into the eyepiece<\/a>, which will help reduce glare while enhancing the contrast between colors in the Jovian atmosphere<\/a>‘s stormy cloud tops.<\/p>\n Want to catch a glimpse of Jupiter up close? Then be sure to check out our picks of the best telescopes<\/a> for exploring the planets of the solar system<\/a>. If you’re interested in photographing the night sky then you may also want to read up on our roundup of the best cameras<\/a> and lenses for astrophotography<\/a>.<\/p>\n Editor’s Note: If you would like to share your astrophotography with Space.com’s readers, then please send your photo(s), comments, and your name and location to spacephotos@space.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jupiter will be at its most spectacular in 2026 in the early hours of Jan. 10, as it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":236800,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[61,60,82,247],"class_list":["post-236799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/jbkGMddB6fL6irTmR92Wgc.jpg\")
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