Venus, Jupiter and Bifrost Observatory - II
April 2012 is a great time for planet watchers. In the evening sky an hour after sunset, planets Venus (brightest object) and Jupiter (to the right of observatory and just above the horizon) are visible in the western sky. Venus has recently engaged in a rare conjunction with the Pleiades star cluster.
The image above shows the Venus in the constellation Taurus. To the left of brilliant Venus is the V-shaped Hyades star cluster in Taurus containing the smoldering orange giant star Aldebaran. Below and to the right of Venus is the small "dipper-shaped" Pleiades star cluster. The winter constellation Orion appears in the upper left corner of this wide angle photo.
Check Planetary Conjunctions for more photos of this lovely coupling.
For an almanac of other interesting sky happenings for each year, see Calendar of Astronomical Events.
Technical Details
- Conjunction: Venus, Jupiter and Bifrost Observatory - I
- Date/Time: 2012 Apr 10 at 02:55 UTC
- Location: Bifrost Astronomical Observatory, Portal, AZ
- Mount: Losmandy G-11 German Equatorial Mount
- Lens: Nikkor AI 20mm f/2.8
- Camera: Nikon D90
- Field of View: 58.3° x 40.9° at 40.5 arc-sec/pixel (web version: 227 arc-sec/pixel)
- Exposure: 25s, f/2.8, ISO 1600
- File Name: BifrostVenus-0006w.jpg
- Processing (Adobe Camera Raw): Color Balance, Vignetting, Noise Reduction
- Processing (Photoshop CS5): Curves
- Original Image Size: 2848 x 4288 pixels (12.2 MP); 9.5" x 14.3" @ 300 dpi
- Rights: Copyright 2012 by Fred Espenak. All Rights Reserved. See: Image Licensing.