Venus And Mars Are All Right Tonight

The planets Venus and Mars were less than a degree apart from one another on the evening of Sunday, February 22, 2015. Venus (left in images) gleamed at -3.95 magnitude and Mars at 1.26 magnitude. The top image was captured at 6:31 PM CST, the middle at 6:34 PM and the bottom again at 6:31 PM. The bottom two images include a waxing quarter moon. All images look west from the parking lot at Christ Community United Methodist Church in Marion, Iowa. Prime viewing was actually two evenings earlier, when the planets AND the moon were clustered in very tight formation, but cloud cover prevented it. Air temperature at the time of image capture above was a frigid 3 degrees F, and my exposed fingers became painfully numb in less than a couple of minutes! Camera: Nikon D5000 DSLR.