Planet Scenes April 2025
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April 29: Moon above the Pleiades Twenty four hours after our previous scene, the Moon is now an almost equal distance above the Pleiades, which unfortunately is barely visible on our image owing to high clouds and haze in the sky. |
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April 28: Jupiter and Moon The winter constellations along with the king of planets, Jupiter, are joined for a few days by the waxing crescent Moon. |
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April 27: Jupiter and Mars Jupiter and Mars were well observed from the cemetery in the Fredericksburg National Battlefield on the evening of the 27th. Jupiter is now well above Aldebaran and Mars is almost at the Beehive Cluster in Cancer. |
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April 24: Venus, Saturn, Mercury & Moon; Mars and Vesta Clouds and some ground fog disrupted our morning planet scene, but it dissipated enough later in twilight to allow us to get a shot of Venus, faint Saturn, and almost imperceptible Mercury just above the treeline. Binoculars showed Mercury very nicely, however! In the evening, we saw Mars approaching the Beehive Cluster and then Vesta in northern Libra. |
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April 18: Venus, Saturn & Mercury This morning I waited long enough for Mercury to clear the low clouds on the eastern horizon. Before Saturn and Mercury rose, I saw Venus to be almost perfectly set up to be part of the Circlet asterism in Pisces; later on I also got a view of the arrangement of the three planets together in bright dawn. Although we can't see it, that doesn't stop us from appreciating the addiiton of Neptune to the scene! |
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April 16: Venus and Saturn Mornings in mid-April this year offer a tantalizing grouping of planets, at least on paper LOL ~ we have Venus, Saturn, Mercury and Neptune gathered together. Unfortunately, only Venus is easy to see. Saturn is barely visible even in binoculars, while Mercury rises even later than our picture, and Neptune of course is totally unobservable. |
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April 15: Jupiter and Mars It's time we checked in on Jupiter and Mars again ~ both have moved considerably since our last visit, owing to the fact that they are both in strong prograde (easterly) motion again. Note how Jupiter is leaving Aldebaran and the Hyades behind, while Mars has already moved from Gemini into Cancer. |
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April 1: Sun with Sunspots The Sun is pretty active at the moment, sporting more than five sunspots or groups right now ~ a week ago, there was almost no activity! This image is from just a single snapshot, no stacking used for this unfortunately. |
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April 1: Venus in the Morning In the hour before twilight set in, we checked in on T Coronae Borealis. A new article in Sky & Telescope magazine suggests that T should either have erupted on or about March 27 or on November 10 of 2025, which are multiples of the orbit times a number that would explain the observed periodicity of the eruptions in the historical record. An hour before sunrise, I went to Belle Plain on Potomac Creek to catch Venus rising over the Potomac River. |
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