One of the benefits of a year when Venus is heading for its northernmost point in the eight-year cycle is that on the way it visits the most famous of star clusters.
See the end note about enlarging illustrations.
This is, frankly, a morsel fom my Venus book, now almost finished.
Venus’s sunlit crescent, at 10 times true size, is drawn at the beginning of each day by Universal Time, , which is 5 or more hours earlier by American clocks, in the previous calendar day. And the positions are as seen from the center of the Earth; from the northern hemisphere, they will be pushed slightly south.
The Pleiades (440 light years distant) are not as near to us as the Hyades (150), but being more compact they are the most readily noticed cluster in the sky. The”Seven Sisters” are actually five and their parents, the Titan Atlas and his wife Pleione. Besides the 6 or 7 or slightly more stars that various naked eyes see, there are over a thousand fainter cluster members. In deep photographs, they are gorgeously swathed in reflection nebulae.
As the eight-year cycle slowly evolves, the arc through the Pleiades shifts westward. Each time, the Pleiades slope of the course lies about a tenth of a degree farther north, and will cut most centrally through the Pleiades in 2036.
2020 is the last year in which the path still lies south of the main stars.
Some of the stars – including many faint ones – get occulted by Venus – a visually exciting effect in the telescope. If you want to try to see an occulted, prepare in advance with up-to-date information, including predictions and advice on observing and reporting, from IOTA, the International Occultation Timing Association, https://occultations.org/.
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ILLUSTRATIONS in these posts are made with precision but have to be inserted in another format. You may be able to enlarge them on your monitor. One way: right-click, and choose “View image”, then enlarge. Or choose “Copy image”, then put it on your desktop, then open it. On an iPad or phone, use the finger gesture that enlarges (spreading with two fingers, or tapping and dragging with three fingers). Other methods have been suggested, such as dragging the image to the desktop and opening it in other ways.
Like Anthony, our forecast for the evening of Friday, April 3rd is for clouds, but I was able to get a twilight photo of the event last night, which is kind of what it looks like through binoculars while the sky is still fairly bright:
http://www.starvergnuegen.com/astropix/v_m45_apr_02_2020_1.jpg
And of course, let’s not forget the string of planets in the morning sky:
http://www.starvergnuegen.com/astropix/three_tenors_2020_04_03_1.jpg
Best of luck to everyone amid all this virus madness!
Gorgeous photos! Thanks for sharing them.
Beautiful illustration. Cheers
I had a beautiful view of the closing conjunction last night,1st April, from the beach using my opticron trailfinder monocular at 8×25.tonight was too cloudy.all of this happening and the plight of humanity unnoticed.i had a strange synchronicity regarding the coronavirus.having seen the 1971 film version years ago I decided to read Michael Crichton’s’the Andromeda strain'(1969) the book that the film is based on about an alien virus that crashes to Earth on a probe ‘scoop 7’.the hamlet in Arizona where it crashes is called Piedmont which strangely is a province of Italy west of Milan and one of the worse effected areas for coronavirus.
I’ve been enjoying watching Venus’ waning phase through my little refractor, and watching her close in on the Pleiades through image-stabilized binoculars. Last night, April 1, was the first time Venus and the Pleiades fit in a low-power telescope eyepiece field. Truly breathtaking. I’m grateful to have a clear view from home, and I’m hoping for clear weather for the conjunction Friday evening. A rainstorm is forecast to come in Friday night. I hope it will linger offshore long enough for me to see the conjunction.
I hadn’t thought about occultations. I think I’ll just take my chances and hope to catch one or more by good luck.
It recently dawned on me that, as seen from Venus, Earth would come to opposition against the same background stars every 13 Venusian years. But you’d have to wait forever for clear skies.
Anthony, that’s a great remark about Venus joining the Pleiades in a field of view.
I’ll add it to the “Benus” book, as I hastily called it in my too-hasty first version of this post. Life is still a bit unsettled.
I hope everything will settle down pleasantly. Take good care!
The weather was clear and windy yesterday evening. I was able to watch Venus snuggle up to Alcyone for a good long time, through the little refractor and image-stabilized binoculars. I liked the view through binoculars better, with the correct image orientation and more background sky.
By dawn this morning the sky was cloudy, and later this morning it started raining. Thank you weather deities for great timing!
I wonder how many more of Venus’ passages through the Pleiades I’ll be able to observe.