Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Ephemeris for Monday, April 2nd.  The sun will rise at 7:20.  It’ll be up for 12 hours and 51 minutes, setting at 8:11.   The moon, 3 days past first quarter, will set at 5:14 tomorrow morning.

This evening Venus starts a pass by the Pleiades star cluster.  The Pleiades is also known as the Seven Sisters and soon it will disappear in the twilight glow.  The next time it will be seen in the evening is in next October.  Venus will head back toward the sun, which it will pass directly in front of on June 5th.  The sun will pass the Pleiades in mid May, so Venus will never quite make it back to the Pleiades this go around anyway.  Though Venus is beginning to head back to the sun, it is still moving eastward against the stars, though a little slower than the sun.  Right now Venus is mostly heading toward us.  Around the 16th of May Venus will finally stop its eastward motion with respect with the stars and will head westward.

* Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.  They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Venus passing the Pleiades April 2 - 4, 2012. Created using Cartes du Ciel.

In the real sky Venus is a heck of a lot brighter than you see here.  And with binoculars, you’ll see a lot more stars in the Pleiades.