Planet Scenes April 2026
|
April 30: Jupiter in Gemini Jupiter rides high in the sky in the early evening, moving slowly eastward against the stars among the background of Gemini. As April turns to May, we will slowly become aware of the impending conjunction between Jupiter and Venus on June 8 and 9. That should afford us fine photo opportunities as they will be almost in line with Castor and Pollux, and Mercury will join them down to their lower right. |
||
|
April 23: Venus and Uranus pass the Pleiades Venus and Uranus, the brightest and faintest naked-eye planets, are in conjunction with each other and with the Pleiades this evening. |
||
|
April 19: Moon and Venus near Pleiades The Moon and Venus bracket the Pleiades in the late evening sky. |
||
|
|
April 18: Comet C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS) and a Moon/Venus pairing I have been trying to get a picture of the comet for a week but stubbornly uncooperative weather every morning has prevented me from doing so. This is the best window through low morning clouds I've had since April 10th. The Moon - Venus conjunction that evening was almost ruined by clouds, but I snuck in a picture before the clouds covered them. |
|
|
April 14: Venus and Uranus Venus and Uranus are closing rapidly each evening, now separated by only about 10°. Uranus is very slowly moving eastward underneath the Pleiades while Venus is racing along the ecliptic through eastern Aries, set to overtake Uranus on April 23, on which date it will coincidentally make an almost perfectly straight line with Uranus and the Pleiades: photo op! |
||
|
April 10: Comet C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS) Comet C/2025 R3 PanSTARRS is well positioned in the morning sky within the great square of Pegasus. |
||
|
|
April 7: Venus and Jupiter Venus is finally now visible in a dark sky just before it sets, and is positioned about half-way along its path through Aries. Jupiter remains in central Gemini high in the south as night falls, which explains how my camera, with its bottom oriented horizontal to the horizon, shows Gemini vertical in my image. |
|
|
April 5: T Coronae Borealis In this 300 mm telephoto image, we see that T Coronae Borealis is still holding at about magnitude 9.8 or 9.9. The image was acquired just before midnight on April 5, 2026 Eastern Daylight Time, which would be around 4:00 a.m. UT on April 6, 2026. |
||