On March 15 about 8 p.m., look to the west (where the Sun sets) to find these two bright ‘stars’ come close to each other. Maybe you have already noticed them by now. The brighter one is Venus, the greenhouse gas planet and the dimmer one is Jupiter, the most colourful of planets after Earth. They look close but in reality they are still about 670 million km away from each other!
On March 26, look out at the same direction at the same time for another interesting conjunction, this time of four celestial objects! Jupiter, a young Moon, Venus and the Pleiades forms a straight line in the early dusk. The Pleiades is a star cluster visible with the naked eye alone! It’s very easy to spot even in the suburban skies, in this case just trace the imaginary line from Jupiter to Venus and keep your eyes peeled for a shimmery shimmery patch of light – and that’s it!
People with digital cameras should also take this opportunity to take a picture of this conjunction! The usual settings are a wide aperture and a low f ratio, and exposures for about 10s? Experiment yourself until you get the best picture you are able to get!
