Astrophotos from Around the World of the Venus-Pleiades Conjunction

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The past several evenings, Venus has been snuggling up to one of the most famous star clusters, the Pleiades. Universe Today readers have taken some beautiful images of that event, and they have generously shared them with us. Above is

John Chumack's

stunning view from Ohio in the US; see below for more images from around the world!

The Pleiades, also known at the Seven Sisters, is a beautiful bright blue open star cluster 440 light years from Earth. Only once every eight years does this conjunction take place.

[caption id="attachment_94444" align="alignleft" width="580" caption="Venus within the Pleiades on April 4, 2012, as seen from New Jersey in the US. Credit and copyright John Anton."]

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John Anton took this pretty image from New Jersey in the US. "It was a beautiful sight," he said.

Astronomers say that the relative tightness of the cluster indicates this is a young group of stars, and the member stars were formed about 100 million years ago and will probably travel together through space as a bound cluster for another 250 million years before the gravity of the Milky Way breaks up the cluster into individual field stars.

[caption id="attachment_94445" align="alignleft" width="580" caption="Venus and the Pleiades from San Diego, USA. Credit: Paul Miller"]

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[caption id="attachment_94446" align="alignleft" width="580" caption="Venus and the Pleiades from the UK. Credit: Dave Liddicott."]

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"An old SLR 70-210mm zoom lens on my DMC-G10. 5 second exposure, 1600 ISO. Tree illuminated partly by a neighbours light and partly by the built in flash on the camera," says Dave Liddicott.

[caption id="attachment_94447" align="alignleft" width="580" caption="The view of Venus and the Pleiades from Norway. Credit: Sirrka Stephens"]

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Sirrka Stephens

from Norway took her image using a Panasonic Lumix DMC-F62, Leica 35mm, 30 sec., f/2.8, ISO 80, rotated to the left.

[caption id="attachment_94448" align="alignleft" width="580" caption="The Venus-Pleiades conjunction from Lebanon.Credit: Space Weed"]

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"

Space Weed"

from Beirut, Lebanon took this image on April 3, 2012. "2 second exposure, ISO 1600, f 5.9, Stack of 40 images and 18 dark frames, Level correction in Photoshop," Space Weed reports.

[caption id="attachment_94449" align="alignleft" width="580" caption="Venus shines brilliantly as it passies by the Pleiades star cluster on April 2, 2012. Credit: Tavi Greiner. "]

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Tavi Greiner

on the east coast of the US took this lovely image on April 2, 2012.

[caption id="attachment_94450" align="alignleft" width="580" caption="Venus and the Pleiades on April 3, 2012. Credit: Austin Russie"]

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Another beautiful view from

Austin Russie.

"A luminous Venus passes directly between Earth and an elusive cluster of stars known as the Pleiades," he says.

[caption id="attachment_94465" align="alignleft" width="580" caption="A double exposure, showing how Venus shifted in two hours' time. Credit: L. Laveder - TWAN"]

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Laurent Laveder

from France sent in this unusual image showing the shifting of Venus in the Pleiades in two hours' time.

[caption id="attachment_94463" align="alignleft" width="580" caption="Image of the conjunction between Venus and M45 Pleiades in the middle of the trees, taken in Fonte-de-Telha, a small pine forest in Portugal. Credit: Miguel Claro"]

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The final image is by Miguel Claro from Portugal, who can be seen enjoying the stars with binoculars "in a peaceful moment," he said.

There are more images on

UT's Flick page

, so check them out!

Want to get your astrophoto featured on Universe Today? Join our Flickr group, post in our Forum or send us your images by email (this means you're giving us permission to post them). Please explain what's in the picture, when you took it, the equipment you used, etc.

Editor's note: Apologies for the irregular formatting of this article -- we're working to fix it!

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com