Photography – 2023 Venus and Pleiades Conjunction

Posted on April 16, 2023 by Benoit Guertin

I’m sharing with you a photo I took of the recent Venus and Pleiades conjunction. The closest approach was on April 10th, but I had to wait until the 12th for a clear sky. It was a pretty sight to see the bright planet and the star cluster so close together in the night sky. I used my Canon 80D and a telephoto lens to capture this image. Here are some tips on how I did it:

Because I was going to take a long exposure and wanted round starts I used my equatorial mount and installed the camera with a clear view of the western horizon.
I set the camera to manual mode, the aperture to f/4.5, the shutter speed to 5 seconds, and the ISO to 1600.
I zoomed in with 135mm of focal length for the desired framing and focused on the bright stars using live view. Initially selected a bright star, and then moving to more dim ones for final focus adjustments. I made sure that both Venus and the Pleiades were nicely in the frame.
To take a photo without camera shake I used the 10sec delay and then checked the histogram to verified that the result is not overexposed.
I then went into the interval setting of the camera to take multiple photos, around 70 in total.
I imported the photos into Deep Sky Stacker for the registration and stacking of the photos.
Then opened the resulting photo over to GIMP for final adjustments like white balance, levels, color saturation, background gradient removal and noise reduction.
I exported the final image as a JPEG. Here it is, click to open full image:

Venus and Pleiades Conjunction April 12, 2023

I was hoping to capture a hint of the nebulosity within the star cluster, but I guess 5 seconds exposures, even when integrated to 6 minutes is not enough to capture that fainter detail. It was around 8:00pm when I took the photos, the sky was not fully dark, making the use of exposure above 5 seconds too bright. However I did manage to capture the colors of the stars down to magnitude 9.

I hope you enjoyed this post and learned something new. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below. Thanks for reading!

Canon 80D
135mm F4.5 telephoto lens
Individual photos: 5 seconds at ISO 1600
6 minutes total integration time
Vixen GP Equatorial Mount (untracked)
Registration and stacking with DSS
GIMP for final adjustment

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.

In case you missed the Venus-Moon close encounter

Posted on June 18, 2018 by Benoit Guertin

Last Saturday evening, if you happened to look outside and had a clear view there is no way you could miss the Venus-Moon close encounter in the dark blue sky. But just in case it was cloudy, or you weren’t paying attention here it is.

Moon and Venus within 8 degrees on June 16, 2018

For those curious on the camera setting, the above is cropped from a single frame at 33mm f/4.5 1/30sec and ISO800 with Canon 80D.

Moving up to 85mm gives you the image below, also at 1/30sec and ISO800. Both images were hand-held from a bedroom window. Could a tripod have helped? Sure, but I figured I could do just fine , especially with image stabilization enabled on the lens.

Moon and Venus within 8 degrees on June 16, 2018

To put a bit of perspective on the distance of these two heavenly bodies and their apparent size in the sky I’ve added a bit of information on the above image. While Venus may be nearly 4 times larger in diameter, it looks quite small next to the Moon in the sky.

Moon and Venus on May 17th

Posted on May 17, 2018 by Benoit Guertin

Came home from my piano lesson (yes you can still learn a new instrument past 40) and the sight of a 2-day old Moon and Venus in the dusk sky was stunning. Unfortunately by the time I got home to grab the camera, the sky had darken quite a bit, so I lost my opportunity for some color in the photo.

Venus 6 degrees from the Moon (May 17, 2018) – Benoit Guertin

While I did take more close-up photos, I find adding the rooftop in the foreground helps establish scale.

Notice the Earthshine, it was easily picked up to naked eye.

Canon 80D
85mm F/8
ISO3200 (1/15sec)

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.

Tomorrow Evening: Moon, Mars and Venus

Posted on January 30, 2017 by Benoit Guertin

Great photo opportunity tomorrow evening, January 31st, with a thin crescent Moon in a close formation with Mars and Venus. As the sky darkens simply look between South-West and West and you won’t miss them. However don’t wait too late, by 9pm they will have disappeared below the horizon.

Early Evening Sky (7pm) – Look WSW for this close formation

The Moon will be a thin crescent. Here it is as photographed of the Moon tonight at 5:40pm just a little less than 3 days old.

Crescent Moon – 30-JAN-2017 (5:40pm)

No high-resolution photo for this one. Took it quickly through an open window simply by hand-holding the telescope, and using Venus to quickly find focus through the camera view-finder.

Skywatcher 80ED
Canon XTi (1/50s at ISO400)
Registax6 to align, stack and wavelet on the best 3 frames (out of a dozen)

The Moon, Mars and Venus

Posted on January 2, 2017 by Benoit Guertin

It’s not often that the Moon finds itself between two planets nicely lined up and within a 12 degree field of view. Just yesterday at around the same time, the Moon was located below Venus. The image below is a two second exposure at ISO 800 with 53mm lens at f/5.6 on a tripod. I cropped the image to remove a street lamp and light pillars from other light sources further in the distance.

02-Jan-2017: The crescent Moon between Mars and Venus

The toughest part was actually finding a spot around my block where there was less glare from street lights or annoying power and utility lines in view. Luckily I found a spot with two extinguished street lamps and setup in between.

A little earlier I quickly snapped the image below from the bedroom window on the 2nd floor. The sky wasn’t dark yet, and as the camera was hand-held, 1/4sec was the lowest I could go. Nevertheless with the rooftops in the foreground, it provides for a sense of scale and location in the sky. The orange-red horizon from the setting sun is a nice touch.

Moon with Venus and Mars in the evening sky

Venus and Crescent Moon

Posted on January 1, 2017 by Benoit Guertin

After three days of cloud cover and a good 20cm of snow, it was nice to see a clear and crisp sky throughout the day and into the evening. With the sun set and the sky still dark blue a crescent Moon and Venus made for a fine pair in the south-west sky for the first evening of 2017.

New Years 2017 Moon and Venus

The Moon will continue to travel towards Mars, located higher up and to the left (East) with a good photo opportunity on the 2nd (tomorrow) with the Moon between both planets. For the rest of January, Venus will gently move closer to Mars to within 6 degrees at the end of the month.

Photo Details:
Canon XTi (450D)
17mm F4 (1/10sec ISO400)
inset: 85mm F5.6 (1/10sec ISO800)

Easily Locate Neptune on December 31st

Posted on December 28, 2016 by Benoit Guertin

December 31st will be your opportunity to easily locate and observe Neptune with a telescope as it will be within 1/3 degree of Mars low in the western part of the Sky. Mars will present a reddish magnitude 1 disk while Neptune will be much smaller, essentially a dimmer magnitude 7.8 dot. Large telescopes should reveal the blueish hue of Neptune when placed slightly out of focus.

Neptune and Mars 1/3 degree – December 31 (1 degree circle)

In the image above I’ve marked magnitude 7.9 star just outside the 1 degree circle to assist in the orientation.

However don’t wait too late in the evening, best may be shortly after 7pm once the Moon is below the horizon. Starting from the horizon you’ll able to easily locate bright Venus and about 10 degrees above will be Mars and Neptune. Bright stars Fomalhaut and Altair will be located east and west along the horizon.

Neptune Mars and Venus setting in the West – December 31 (7pm)

Comet C/2013 US10 (Catalina) Continues To Be Visible

Posted on September 15, 2015 by Benoit Guertin

Comet C/2013 US10 (Catalina) continues to be visible at around magnitude 6 to observers in the southern hemisphere. For people north of the equator, we’ll have to wait until late November when it will become an early morning comet.

One date to mark on your calendar is the morning of December 7th. A wonderful early morning opportunity to spot C/2013 US10 next to Venus and a Lunar crescent all within a 6 deg window. This will be fairly low (20 deg) over the South-East horizon.