Sunday, April 25, 2010

Venus and the Pleiades

Venus and the Pleiades are having a nice conjunction. Look west after sunset for the brightest thing you can see. That’s Venus. Tonight the Pleiades were almost directly to the right of Venus. Here is what it looked like from Tucson.

Venus will continue to get higher in the sky and the Pleiades are sinking lower each night after sunset. You can still get a good view the next few nights, so give it a shot.

Reprinted with permission from the Half-Astrophysicist Blog.

6 comments:

kkdither said...

That is a very cool shot! Looks almost like the big dipper!

hale-bopp said...

Lots of people say that, KK. The little dipper is even substantially larger than the Pleiades...they are the really tiny dipper!

I sent this to KVOA, the local NBC affiliate and they used it on their newscast last night.

MinnesotaChick said...

Very cool shot!!

I was looking forward to looking for this tonight, but then it clouded up. :(

Congrats on them using your pic!

MinnesotaChick said...

ohh! I see Venus, so maybe there is still a chance!

OrbsCorbs said...

Great shot, hale. I thought of the dippers, too.

It's very "urban" where I live and difficult to get a good view of the western sky. I need access to a roof.

kkdither said...

I'm thinking we have too much light pollution here. I've looked, and unless it has moved significantly, we can't see it.