April 11, 2023 – Venus Next to the Pleiades

Posted on April 10, 2023 by Benoit Guertin

If you are a stargazer, you might want to mark your calendar for April 11, 2023. At dusk, look west, you will have a chance to see Venus shining bright just 5 degrees left of the Pleiades, a beautiful star cluster also known as the Seven Sisters. Venus is the brightest planet in the sky and it will be easy to spot with the naked eye or binoculars. If you have a clear sight of the horizon and head out early enough, planet Mercury will be visible low in the sky and at a prime time for viewing at 19 degrees from the sun.

Conjunction of Venus with the Pleiades on April 11, 2023 — Venus next to the Pleiades on April 11, 2023 after sunset

The Pleiades, also known as the Seven Sisters, is a famous star cluster in the constellation of Taurus. It is one of the brightest and most easily recognizable clusters in the night sky, visible to the naked eye in both hemispheres. The Pleiades consists of about 1000 stars, but only a few are visible to the unaided eye. The brightest stars are named after the mythological daughters of Atlas and Pleione in Greek mythology: Alcyone, Asterope, Celaeno, Electra, Maia, Merope and Taygeta.

Venus just 5 degrees left of the Pleiades

But that’s not all. Venus is also approaching its greatest elongation, which means it is farthest from the sun on the sky’s dome. This will happen on June 4, 2023, when Venus will be 46 degrees east of the sun and will set about three hours after sunset. At that time, Venus will be 49% illuminated and will appear as a first quarter phase through a telescope.

Greatest elongations are important events for observing the inner planets such as Mercury and Venus. They orbit closer to the sun than Earth. Therefore, it always appears near the sun when the sky is still blue and bright or lower over the horizon, and never overhead at midnight.

If you want to learn more about Mercury or Venus and its position in the sky, you can check out some online resources such as EarthSky.org or SkyandTelescope.org. They have detailed information and charts about Venus’s movements and appearances in the sky. You can also use a free online planetarium program such as Stellarium (what I used for the above screen captures) to see how Venus looks from your location at any time.

This Weekend: 4 Planets in Plain Sight

Posted on September 15, 2017 by Benoit Guertin

If you are able to get out of bed early before sunrise and the sky is clear, you can catch a view of our three closest planets, and if you include Earth that makes 4. Mercury was at the greatest elongation on September 12th (furthest from the Sun when viewed from Earth) which makes it a good time to spot without the glare of the Sun. But it happens that Mars and Venus are also on that same side of the Sun, making a chanced planetary alignment.

The sky map below [click for larger] shows the position of Mercury, Mars and Venus for the morning of the 16 to the 19 of September. Bright star Regulus and our Moon are also there to make this a worth-while event, especially on Monday the 18th.

Mars and Mercury will be closest on the 16th, while the 18th will probably be the most photogenic as the Moon will be a thin crescent in the middle of this alignment.

Link

With the last maneuver planned for April 24th, the Messenger spacecraft will be officially out of fuel and unable to maintain proper orbit around planet Mercury. Scientists expect the spacecraft to crash onto Mercury on April 30th. Unfortunately the impact is expected on the opposite side of the planet, out of view from Earth’s observation posts.

I know for past spacecraft impacts such as those on the Moon, NASA had asked the amateur astronomy community to observe and record the impact. Out of luck and out of reach this time…

Sources: SPACE.COM / NASA