Venus with the Pleiades and Hyades Open Star Clusters 14th April 2015

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I couldn’t resist another go at Venus passing the Pleiades cluster tonight, but this time I took a wider view and included the Hyades open cluster too. The Hyades is the V of stars to the left with the much closer red giant star Aldebaran glowing brightly at the top of the V. The Hyades cluster is about 625 million years old and the nearest open cluster to the solar system. Please click on the image to enlarge it as the small image above is heavily compressed by WordPress.

Image taken 14/4/15 20.27 UTC+1 Sony RX 100, ISO 1600, f.4.9, 37mm, 2.5 sec Luminance x 11. Stacked in Deepskystacker 3. Processed in Photoshop CS2.

Venus and the Pleiades Cluster 12th April 2015

Dashed out into the back garden just before 9pm to catch this lovely close encounter between Venus and the Pleiades open star cluster (M45) low in the west at 9.02pm. A close conjunction like this occurs every eight years in mid April. Image taken with a Canon 350d and Tamron LD DI 70-300mm zoom lens at 70mm (then cropped) ISO 400 3.2 seconds.