Jupiter-Venus Conjunction: How Often Does It Occur and How Can We Calculate It?

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iamBevan
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Hi - just a question about the Jupiter - Venus conjunction that's happening at the moment. How often does it happen that the two planets appear this close in the sky?

Or, better, how could I calculate this?
 
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Some PC- based astronomy packages such as Redshift will calculate this automatically for you, for any start date and end date you choose. Conjunctions such as this are relatively common, and the two planets aren't especially close together this time around. The nice thing about this particular event is that the planets appear to be far from the Sun in the sky, so we can observe it in a dark sky after Sunset.