Venus in the Pleiades – 4th April 2012
April 4, 2012by yaska77
As per usual our skies were cloudy last night. I’m beginning to believe the clouds wait to roll in just before particular astral events, usually the ones I most want to see! Last night (as noted in our Astro Guide for April) the planet Venus appeared as if part of the Pleiades star cluster.
Thankfully tonight Venus hasn’t moved on all that far, and a break in the clouds just after sunset gave us the chance to get some photos!
The bright planet Venus shines next to the Pleiades cluster, and the setting Jupiter is accompanied by some of her moons (click to enlarge) - Credit: Sky-Watching/A.Welbourn
Taken with a Canon Eos 550D using a 50mm lens (4 sec exposure, f/3.5, ISO400), virtually none of the stars you can see in the image above were visible to the naked eye!
A cropped full size view of the beautiful Pleiades next to a radiant Venus (click to enlarge) - Credit: Sky-Watching/A.Welbourn
This is a fullsize cropped section of the image. Yesterday Venus would have appeared lower down and closer to the lower left edge of the cluster, so they would both have appeared in the field of view if the Canon were attached to a telescope. Another missed opportunity.
Still, the great thing about astrophotography is that there’s always something worthy of imaging, and we like the shots we got this evening.
Space is cool 
Beautiful! I’ll take a look tonight, although it’s probably a bit too late now.
Many thanks!
It’ll still be close to the Pleiades tonight but slightly higher and to the left
Where I live it’s been cloudy BOTH nights. I enjoyed your photo instead.
Sorry you were clouded out
but glad we could help you see it! 