03/04/2020 Venus and the Pleiades

[SiriusDoggy]

This Friday evening is gonna be the time to take a peak at Venus as it appears in the middle of the Pleiades. It's gonna look like one of the Seven Sisters went Supernova!

[MarkAR]

CO says 39 % going up to 100% cloud, though they have been known to be wrong occasionally.

[CentaurZ]

Indeed, Venus this evening will be passing just south of the principal Pleiades stars. It will actually pass among some of the cluster's telescopic members. A conjunction occurs every year, but is particularly close every eight years as is the case this year. In the coming eight-year cycles, Venus will pass among the cluster's principal stars.
 

Photos and descriptions of the conjunction would be welcome additions to this thread.

 

Edited April 3, 2020 by CentaurZ

[jonathan]

I managed to observe this last night for about ten minutes before the cloud mass rolled in, took out my 70mm travel scope on a simple alt-az camera tripod for a quick setup.  Opening just the small cap on the objective I was able to see the crescent of Venus and the surrounding cluster's brighter stars, dimmer objects were washed out by the still brilliant Venus and also the almost 2/3 moon.  With a moon filter Venus was a tiny bit clearer but the surrounding stars almost disappeared so it was perhaps best without the moon filter and my trusty old Celestron Plossl 25mm eyepiece.

I'm sure had I the time to set up my larger refractor I could have eliminated some of the colour fringing and other artefacts that the simpler 70mm travel scope introduced, but there will hopefully be plenty of opportunities to observe Venus through April and into the summer.  The Celestron 70mm travel scope continues to impress me, it's simplicity and ease of use combined with very sharp visuals make it a much appreciated piece of kit, I'd recommend it to anyone, although a beefy tripod is a must as the supplied one is far too flimsy (the scope comes with a vixen dovetail attached so could also be fitted to an EQ mount), also a simple right angle star diagonal is a good optional extra.  I've also tried some bird spotting and this scope does a very decent job of that too with the 45 degree erecting prism.

 

Edited April 4, 2020 by jonathan