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image credit & copyright: Scott Aspinall




it was an astronomical triple play!

setting on the left, just after sunset near the end of march, was our Moon -- showing a bright crescent phase

setting on the right was Venus, the brightest planet in the evening sky last march -- and april, too

with a small telescope, you could tell that Venus' phase was half, meaning that only half of the planet, as visible from Earth, was exposed to direct sunlight and brightly lit

high above and much further in the distance was the Pleiades star cluster

although the Moon and Venus move with respect to the background stars, the Pleiades do not -- because they are background stars

in the beginning of april month, Venus appeared to move right in front of the Pleiades, a rare event that happens only once every eight years

the featured image captured this cosmic triangle with a series of exposures taken from the same camera over 70 minutes near Avonlea, Saskatchewan, Canada

the positions of the celestial objects was predicted

the only thing unpredicted was the existence of the foreground tree -- and the astrophotographer is still unsure what type of tree that is ...

















































in apod.nasa.gov/apod