Planet Scenes March 2020

	By the end of March, 2020, Venus was nearing the Pleiades star cluster, which it will pass by in the first few days of April.  We've had bad weather for over two weeks now, so since it was clear on March 30 I got a nice picture since the weather forecast is not great for the next week.
		These images show the planet scenes on the evening of March 7 and the next morning, March 8, 2020.  Venus is just overtaking Uranus in its march toward inferior conjunction in early June, and we can already see that it is beginning to veer off of the ecliptic as it heads toward the Pleiades.  The morning sky this winter has been adorned by the evolving view of the three bright outer planets; note that both Jupiter and Saturn are in a part of their orbit that puts them virtually right on the ecliptic ~ the reason that their conjunction later this year will be one of the closest in many years.

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