Sunday, October 08, 2006
Where's Mars and Venus Now?
Image Credit NASA/SOHORight now, Mars and Venus are too close to the Sun to observe. In this LASCO C3 image, with the Sun occulted out, Venus is the bright object on the right with the spike artefact running through it, and Mars is the brightish dot in almost the same position directly opposite. This animation (220k) gives you a good idea of how they are moving, and here is a larger animation (1.4 Mb).
Very interesting encounters happen in a couple of weeks time that can only bee seen via the SOHO C3 camera. On October 22, Mars, Venus, the Sun, the Moon and the bright Star Spica are all in a circle 5 degrees across (see image below). On the 23rd Mars is in conjunction, and on the 26th Mars and Venus are at their closest.
Alignment of Mars, Venus, Moon Spica and the Sun on the 22nd (generated in Skymap). I am not sure how the Moon will look in the C3 camera though. On the 19th, Mars Spica, Venus and the Moon all lie withing a circle 3.5 degrees in diameter.# posted by Ian Musgrave @ 8:00 pm 
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