Venus & Pleiades

I see that Venus and the Pleiades are getting quite close together these nights.

On Thursday night, Venus was about 4 degrees south of M45. I could fit them all in at 11X in my 70mm guidescope. Very dramatic sight. However, on Saturday night the gap has decreased to 2.5 degrees.

It should be a very grand sight in wide field scopes and binoculars. At nightfall, Venus is quite high up on the western sky -magnitude -4.

Aubrey.

Yes I caught this by accident Friday night. I had a rough alignment for imaging and as a test decided to slew around to Venus just as it was going down. I landed in the Pleiades and was disorientated at first due to the FOV but soon realised when I looked up that the noise on the live image was in fact lots of stars : ). Hopefully we get to observe it in the next few nights.

Hi Kevin. I saw Venus and the Pleiades on Thursday night in my 70mm Guidescope at 11X -remarkable contrast.

It seems that Saturday night they were closest about 2.5 degrees apart.

Aubrey.