Venus within a degree of Aldebaran

Event Date: July 9th
Time: 5:00 AM


Brief

   Venus has its best pairing of the year with star Aldebaran this morning.  Before showing the pair in telescopic view, I will remind that Venus is still binocular-friendly with Jupiter for the next week.  Currently, the two are about 5 1/2º apart, and best seen in a field of about 7º; to see Jupiter's Moons clearly, this size will work.  Venus' thin crescent shape will not be noticed at such a low magnification, although it has become brighter fast over the last two weeks.  As the planet reaches greatest brilliancy later this month and best apparent magnitude about the same time of the summer, I will bring both to attention.
   Getting back to Aldebaran, it is labeled along with Venus 0.9º apart.  The first image shows both bright planets and Aldebaran zoomed out-while the second shows Aldebaran and Venus alone in a field of 1.4º.  For that one, the software shows Venus dimmer, yet zoomed in enough to someone see the crescent shape.

click on image to enlarge: courtesy of Starry Night Pro Plus, version 6.4.3, by Simulation Curriculum Corp.

Detailed

   Showing above in the second image, closer to Venus than Aldebaran, are 6th and 7th magnitude stars, at 14 and 26 arc-minutes apart from Venus respectively.  Although those separations are impressive when using a higher magnification, which also lets us see Venus' crescent larger, the stars are quite dull in comparison to brighter, orange-red Aldebaran.
   After this close encounter with Aldebaran, Venus parts ways from the giant star for about 10 more months.  As a result of its change of motion against the stars, Venus has spent a few weeks in the Hyades, having close encounters with other stars visible with the unaided eye.  If you have used optical aid to view it during this time, you may have noticed Venus come very close to some dimmer stars as well.  The next time that Venus visits Aldebaran and the Hyades in May of 2013, it will happen when all are in the glare of the Sun, and not visible.  We will have to wait until late June of 2014, and Venus will only pass the Hyades rather than "cut through" it.