Pre-dawn Planetary-Stellar grouping

Took this before dane about 6am. What a wonderful sight!
Left to right: Pleiades ("Seven Sisters"), Jupiter, then Venus within the A-shaped Hyades Cluster. Star just right of Venus is Aldebaran.  [Click on image for high-res]

From Astroscapes

Pentax Kx 50mm-f1.8, 4se,c iso400, 8 Jul 2012 Pooraka, South Australia

Venus and Pleiades

After its encounter with Jupiter two weeks ago now Venus gracefully drifts by the Pleaides Cluster (M45) on 3 April. While these encounters occur every year they are not all so well placed in the evening sky like this one, Close encounters with the Pleiades occur every 8 years. the last was 3 April 2004, the next 3 April 2020.



The Pleiades are about 400 light years away while Venus is a foreground object in our solar solar system "only" 5 light minutes away (94 million km).