The Moon-Venus-Mars Conjunction of 2017

I mention in my page on Venus that phenomena involving this planet re-occur at intervals of 8 years, as this number of Earth-years is almost exactly equal to 13 Venusian years. Venus was rising high in the sunset sky in winter 2008/09, and was again in 2016/17. As detailed on my page entitled "The Great Conjunction", in 2008/09 Venus was close to Jupiter with the Moon also joining in early in December. Eight years later, in early 2017, there were further "comings together" between Venus and the Moon but this time with Mars quite close by instead of Jupiter. Not so dramatic as in 2008 but worth taking a look at none the less. Note, by the way, that the interval was a little greater then 8 years because in 2008 Venus was heading out towards its greatest separation from the Sun whereas in 2017 it was heading back towards solar conjunction.

The picture on the main page shows the three in early January 2017, nicely lined up with the Moon in the middle. Further alignments occurred both one and two lunar months later, but I couldn't observe in early February because of cloud. I had better luck in on the next occasion though, and was able to capture the view on three successive evenings.

This is the position on 28th February, with Mars (to top left) Venus and the thin crescent Moon forming a near-perfect right-angled triangle. The Moon is considerably over-exposed of course, being very much brighter even than Venus, which has been made slightly fuzzy by thin cloud. One day later the Moon had moved so as to almost repeat the right-angled triangle, but this time with Mars at the 90deg point. This picture was taken about 30mins earlier than the previous one so needed a lesser exposure because of the brighter sky. This has made the Moon's crescent much more obvious but has considerably reduced the brightness of both planets.

As I was purely trying to give an impression of the alignments over the three days rather than produce something which could be compared to other conjunctions, these images are of course not "at standard scale"- although they are at the same scale as each other. In fact, it would have been difficult to achieve standard scale as the separations are much larger than for "proper" conjunctions: the Mars-Venus distance in each image is around 13 degrees, for example.

And finally, on 2nd March, the three heavenly bodies regained their straight-line alignment from January, but this time in a different order and considerably farther apart, lessening the photogenic aspect.

And what about another 8 years? What will the situation be in 2024/25? Quite interesting, actually! Nothing much happens in December (the Moon and Venus do of course get together again, though not particularly close) but in January not only do the pair close to within 2 degrees (on 3rd) but Saturn begins to join in as well. It's 14 degrees away from Venus, but on 4th January it is occulted by the Moon! (i.e. the Moon passes in front of it as seen from the Earth). Saturn disappears behind the dark limb of the crescent Moon at 5:20pm (which might be hard to see, as the sky is not fully dark by then) and re-appears from the bright limb at 6:30pm (which should easily be visible). In February Venus has moved above Saturn, so on 1st the two are 11 degrees apart almost vertically, with the thin crescent Moon one-third of the way down and slightly to the left. In March it's the turn of Mercury to come to the party, as on 1st the situation is very similar to that with Saturn in February. It will be almost directly below Venus (but again over 14 degrees away) with the very thin crescent Moon half-way between and slightly to the left. Could be difficult to spot Mercury though, as it's only 4 degrees high at 6:30pm. Loads of photo-oportunities there then - a long time to go yet of course, but it's never too early to hope for good weather!

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This is the position on 28th February, with Mars (to top left) Venus and the thin crescent Moon forming a near-perfect right-angled triangle. The Moon is considerably over-exposed of course, being very much brighter even than Venus, which has been made slightly fuzzy by thin cloud.	One day later the Moon had moved so as to almost repeat the right-angled triangle, but this time with Mars at the 90deg point. This picture was taken about 30mins earlier than the previous one so needed a lesser exposure because of the brighter sky. This has made the Moon's crescent much more obvious but has considerably reduced the brightness of both planets.
		As I was purely trying to give an impression of the alignments over the three days rather than produce something which could be compared to other conjunctions, these images are of course not "at standard scale"- although they are at the same scale as each other. In fact, it would have been difficult to achieve standard scale as the separations are much larger than for "proper" conjunctions: the Mars-Venus distance in each image is around 13 degrees, for example.
And finally, on 2nd March, the three heavenly bodies regained their straight-line alignment from January, but this time in a different order and considerably farther apart, lessening the photogenic aspect.