Mercury-Venus conjunction
BEST TIME TO SEE: 25–30 April
Mercury and Venus have a close encounter this month. Venus was in superior conjunction on 25 March and is now emerging into the evening sky. Its separation from the Sun isn’t great in April, but the steep angle the ecliptic plane makes with the western horizon at sunset during spring helps keep Venus above the horizon after sunset.
On 25 April, Venus and Mercury appear separated by just 1.2 after the Sun has set. They remain above the west-northwest horizon for around 45 minutes after the Sun. Venus will be shining at mag. –3.8, Mercury at mag. –1.5, both capable of punching through the bright twilight sky. We’d recommend waiting for the Sun to properly set, then using binoculars to first locate Venus. It shouldn’t be long before Mercury too pops out of the bright twilight sky.
While Venus takes a while to crawl away from the Sun, Mercury appears to move much faster and over the following nights the Solar System’s innermost planet zips away from Venus, climbing higher in the sky. It retains a decent brightness too, staying brighter than mag. –1.0 for the rest of the month. It’s a great opportunity to try and spot Mercury if you’ve never seen it before.