In 1996, Venus repeated its performance of 1980 and 1988, which is the most favorable kind of apparition for northern hemisphere observers. In the first half of the year, she is high in the winter and spring sky, goes through inferior conjunction in June, and then spends the summer and autumn high in the morning sky. In the evening half of its apparition, Venus increasingly moves north of the ecliptic, but as it passes between Earth and Sun, Venus moves rapidly through its descending node, so that when it emerges in the morning sky, it is well south of the ecliptic. Venus' orbital track for the remainder of the summer carries it back north towards the ecliptic.

By the time of these photos on August 11, Venus is still considerably south of the ecliptic but moving north each day as it races eastward against the stars towards its superior conjunction in early April 1997. This is one of those rare instances in which Venus is within the boundary of Orion, not an ecliptic constellation. Venus is still at above average brightness, at mag- nitude -4.36, but gradually losing brightness as sinks toward the horizon each day.

Mars, during the 1990's and 2000's, is in a phase during which its opposi- tion years are the odd-numbered ones. As a result, his oppositions occur in January 1993, February 1995, March 1997, April 1999, etc.  By definition therefore, the even-numbered years are when Mars passes on the far side of the Sun from our perspective, an event known as superior conjunction, or, since Mars can never be between Earth and Sun, it is simply "conjunction." Mars went through conjunction on March 4, 1996, and as such it is now slowly increasing in western elongation from the Sun and as such gaining altitude each morning. At times like this when Mars is still very distant, it is only as bright as an average star, so this morning it shines at magnitude +1.52, almost exactly the brightness of Castor in Gemini.

The images at right show, from top to bottom, a wide angle view of the scene with Orion fully visible on the right, then a normal view of the planets and Moon, and at bottom a wide angle view, centered on the planets, that shows (albeit barely) the two main stars of Gemini to the lower left of Mars.  The separation between Mars and Venus this morning was 8° 40' 14". Mars will be passed by Venus in early September, with their closest approach being on the morning of the 3rd. The below images expand to the views on these dates: