From now through mid-April, in the western evening twilight sky, the “Queen of the Night,” better known as the brilliant planet Venus, will help you to identify the normally hard-to-find planet Mercury.
And along the way, Venus will have a striking interaction with The Seven Sisters, the Pleiades star cluster.
Through a run that will last more than two weeks, skywatchers will be able to watch as Venus hovers well above and to the left of Mercury. Then, later in the month, Mercury will drop into the sunset fires and ultimately fade from view.
Related: Solar system planets, order and formation: A guide
Normally a tough target
Venus, of course, attracts the attention of even casual skywatchers. One metaphor compares it to a sequined showgirl strutting her stuff in the western evening twilight. But most folks have never noticed another planet that, like Venus, swings back and forth nearer to the sun than Earth.
That’s Mercury.
Mercury is a difficult object to study because it’s a small planet — the smallest in our solar system. Scarcely half as far from the sun as Venus is, most of the time it’s hidden by the sun’s glare. Mercury ventures away from our star only about half as far into our evening sky, dodging out into view in the evening twilight low in the western sky. But when both Venus and Mercury shine together in the evening twilight, Venus can act as a celestial benchmark, pointing the way to the more elusive Mercury.
Then, the speedy little planet is easy to see, if you know when and where to look.
Let Venus be your guide
On Saturday evening (April 1), about a half hour after sunset, using binoculars, scan near the west-northwest horizon to locate Mercury. Although shining at magnitude -1.0, which is virtually as bright as Sirius (the brightest star in the sky), Mercury is still deeply immersed in the bright evening twilight, so it might be a bit difficult to pick out initially.
But this unfavorable circumstance will rapidly improve in the coming days, for although it will slowly fade, this will be more than compensated by the fact that Mercury will be pulling farther away from the sun and correspondingly lifting higher up into the sky. Also take note how Mercury and Venus will appear to be positioned roughly 20 degrees apart. (Your clenched fist held at arm’s length measures approximately 10 degrees.)
In fact, between April 4 and April 13, Mercury will be within 20.5 degrees of Venus. So, through the first half of April, Venus will serve as a…
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