Venus, Taurus and the Pleiades - III
Conjunctions between Venus and the Pleiades (M45) star cluster at favorable elongations from the Sun are relatively rare astronomical events. In April 2012, Venus and the naked-eye star cluster were again in close proximity for several days, and with Venus favorably placed in the evening sky just days after its Greatest Eastern Elongation from the Sun on March 26.
The image above shows the constellation constellation Taurus and the close conjunction of Venus and the Pleiades (M45) on the evening of 2012 April 3 (local time) from Portal, AZ. The V-shaped Hyades open star cluster containing the smoldering orange giant star Aldebaran appears to the left while the Pleiades and brilliant Venus are to the right. A Nikon D90 and a Nikkor 18-200 VR lens were used to capture the event (North is up). The exposure was 1 minute at f/8 (ISO 800). Camera tracking was accomplished with a Losmandy G-11 equatorial mount.
Check Planetary Conjunctions for more photos of this lovely event.
For an almanac of other interesting sky happenings for each year, see Calendar of Astronomical Events.
Technical Details
- Conjunction: Venus, Taurus and the Pleiades - III
- Date/Time: 2012 Apr 04 at 03:05 UTC
- Location: Bifrost Astronomical Observatory, Portal, AZ
- Mount: Losmandy G-11 German Equatorial Mount
- Lens: Nikkor 18-200 VR f/3.5-5.6 at 60mm
- Camera: Nikon D90
- Field of View: 22.3° x 15.0° at 18.7 arc-sec/pixel (web version: 86.6 arc-sec/pixel)
- Exposure: 60s, f/8, ISO 800
- File Name: VenusM45-0029w.jpg
- Processing (Adobe Camera Raw): Noise Reduction
- Processing (Photoshop CS5): High Pass Filter
- 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.