In early 2012, Jupiter was concluding an apparition similar to its 2000 and 1988 apparitions, so moving eastward through Aries; at the same time, Venus was in the midst of one of its best evening apparitions during the course of its eight-year cycle, therefore similar to 2004, 1996, and 1988.  Thus, we see that this conjunction of the two brightest planets mirrors that of 1964 and 1988, and will be succeeded by one in 2036.  On this evening, Venus is magnitude -4.29 and Jupiter is -2.15, with 3°09'08" separating them.  On the right side, we have four diagrams of the conjunctions in this series during my lifetime:  1964 (I was only 1 year old), 1988, 2012, and the next one is 2036 (I will be 73 then).  Unannotated image