Good evening, fellow stargazers!
Early this morning, I was able to capture a couple of great photos of the conjunction between the planets Saturn and Mars about an hour before sunrise.
The two planets can be seen with the bright planet, Venus
about 90 minutes, or so before sunrise. Despite being millions of miles
apart and Saturn being a far larger planet than little Mars, both
appear to be about the same size in the early morning sky and about the
width of the full moon apart.
The three planets will remain close to each other for the rest of the month of April, and will be joined by Jupiter lower towards the rising sun. By the middle of the month, around the 14th and 15th of April, the four planets will appear in a parade following the ecliptic in the early morning sky. This blogger will do his best to try and get a great shot of that event.
As morning made way to evening, I captured another beautiful shot of the Young Crescent Moon together in the sky with the Pleiades Star Cluster and the larger nearby Hyades Star Cluster in the Constellation Taurus The Bull in the western sky.
The three planets will remain close to each other for the rest of the month of April, and will be joined by Jupiter lower towards the rising sun. By the middle of the month, around the 14th and 15th of April, the four planets will appear in a parade following the ecliptic in the early morning sky. This blogger will do his best to try and get a great shot of that event.
As morning made way to evening, I captured another beautiful shot of the Young Crescent Moon together in the sky with the Pleiades Star Cluster and the larger nearby Hyades Star Cluster in the Constellation Taurus The Bull in the western sky.
Located about 153 light years (47 parsecs) from the Sun, the Hyades is the nearest and one of the best-studied star clusters. From the perspective of observers on Earth, the brightest stars of the Hyades Cluster appears in the form of a V shape as the head of the bull along with the still-brighter Aldebaran, which is actually unrelated to the Hyades, as it is located much closer to Earth and appears along the same line of sight.
The Pleiades by contrast are about 444 light-years (136 parsecs) from the Sun and its brightest seven stars (also known as the Seven Sisters) are more tightly packed together in a small dipper.
Together the Hyades and the Pleiades both form another asterism referred to as the Golden Gate of the Ecliptic where all the planets of our Solar System and the moon travel across the night and morning sky, passing between these two star clusters which form the two posts of this virtual gate at the two sides of the ecliptic line.
Well folks, I hope y'all enjoyed my planetary and night sky offering for this evening. Please let me know what y'all think in the comments below, as well as any information I might have left out.
Until next time be sure to keep your eyes to the skies, y'all hear!
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