M V

 What with moon and Venus. Why is everyone going so crazy. 

The crescent moon, Venus and the Pleiades will reach conjunction during the peak of the Lyrid meteor shower this Saturday. 

The Pleiades (pronounced either “player-deez” or “plee-er-deez” and also known as the “Seven Sisters”) is a bright fuzzy patch of light that’s been impossible to miss all winter in the south after dark. It will soon sink into the Sun’s glare for summer, but before it does there’s time for one last visitor.

conjunction is an astronomical event that occurs when two celestial objects appear close together in the sky. It can involve planets, objects and/or the Moon

The conjunction of Venus and the Pleiades will occur on Monday, April 10, 2023. However, you should also look on Sunday and Tuesday nights when the two will be almost as close. If there’s a clear sky at sunset get outside and look west!

Go look at The Planets Today : A live view of the solar system and you’ll see that as Earth is orbiting the Sun it’s being tracked by Venus on the inside. That means Venus currently appears as far from the Sun as it ever can, from our point of view. Consequently it’s high in the sky after sunset

Venus and the Pleiades form a peculiar couple. Venus is extravagantly bright surrounded by a thick atmosphere reflecting 70 percent of all received light. The Pleiades however are dim and slight, since the young and not yet completely formed cluster is 400 light years away. These opposite characteristics offer a pretty view for star-gazers as well as photographers and astronomers.