Planet Scenes February 2026
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February 28: Venus & Saturn Just slightly more than a week after our last picture, we see the scene has changed significantly. Venus has not altered its position very much, but Mercury has dimmed so drastically that even though it is equal height above the horizon with Venus, I could not see it even with binoculars. Saturn has also gotten noticeably lower and soon will disappear into the gloaming. |
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February 20: Saturn, Mercury and Venus On this clear, mild evening, we have a great view of the planetary alignment that starts at the horizon with Venus, then extends upward to Mercury, and then farther up and to the left to Saturn. Neptune is just to the right of Saturn but not visible on my image. |
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February 11: Saturn in Pisces Saturn continues to sink lower in the evening sky; this evening, Mercury was enmeshed in clouds, so I couldn't get a shot of the two together. Fletcher's Chapel is very pretty church in the northwestern corner of King George County. |
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February 10: Mercury in Aquarius Mercury is back in the evening sky, to be joined by Venus several weeks from now, towards the end of Mercury's current apparition. Here we see the winged Messenger in the central part of Aquarius. |
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February 8: Saturn and Neptune in Pisces Saturn has now moved back into Pisces and is getting closer to Neptune ~ will he catch up to his distant relative before solar conjunction? |
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February 2: Sun with Sunspots A massive new sunspot group, identified as 4366, has emerged coming around the Sun's western limb and should be visible for the next week. This image was obtained with my 1,000 mm achromatic refractor and Nikon D600 full frame camera, along with a white light glass filter. |
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February 1: Snow Moon A view of the full Moon with its reflection off of our glacial landscape! |
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February 1: Snow Moon and Jupiter The full Moon of February is called the Snow Moon and that is entirely appropriate for 2026 ~ in central Virginia we have been under a 5" glacier for over a week, since we received about 5" of snow, then a layer of sleet and freezing rain on top of that, followed by a week of temperatures well below freezing ~ people are ice skating on top of the ice sheet! Here we see Jupiter in Gemini and two views of the full Moon low in the east. |