My daughter Christa and I took a trip down the Blue Ridge Parkway in late August 2014 and camped one night in the Eurovan at Rocky Knob.  That night I took some pictures with my IR modified Canon D300, among them this picture of Saturn and Mars being in conjunction in Libra.  Saturn is magnitude +0.61 and Mars is magnitude +0.60, separated by 3°25'15" near the α star of Libra, Zubenelgenubi.  Unannotated image

Saturn spent the year 2014 in Libra, which is where it was in 1985, the first full year after I renewed my interest in astronomy (after a hiatus during the late 1970's and early 1980's).  It takes about 29½ years for Saturn to complete one orbit, so on aver- age it spends over two years in each of the zodiac- al constellations.

For some reason, I didn't take any pictures of Sat- urn in 2015, but it would have spent 2015 generally in the area of the head of Scorpius. The next image I acquired showing Saturn was in January 2016, when it was located in Ophiuchus, paired with Venus dur- ing morning twilight.

Mars moves much more rapidly than Saturn does, with the result that it only comes to opposition every 2 years and several months (on average).  During this 15 year period, Mars' oppositions occur in the even years, so 2010, 2012, 2014, etc. all the way to the last opposition of the series in December 2022.

This year Mars came to opposition on April 8 in the constellation Virgo, so it is now in the long phase of its post-opposition race to stay ahead of Earth, which keeps it in the evening sky until its conjun- ction behind the Sun on June 14, 2015. Its next op- position will be in May 2016, which unfortunately I did not get a picture of.