That especially bright star in the evening sky of late is actually the planet Venus. This evening, it will begin to cross the beautiful Pleiades or Seven Sisters star cluster. To wit:
This digital sky map illustrates the path of the inner planet as the beautiful conjunction evolves, showing its position on the sky over the next few days. The field of view shown is appropriate for binocular equipped skygazers but the star cluster and planet are easily seen with the naked-eye. As views from Earth (top pic, 2004), Venus again passed in front of the Seven Sisters (pic 2) 8 years ago, and will again 8 years hence. In fact, orbiting the Sun 13 Venus years are almost equal to 8 years on planet Earth. So we can expect our sister planet to visit nearly the same place in our sky every 8 years.
(Image: David Cortner, Digital image: Fred Espenak (Bifrost Astronomical Observatory)
Sky Map app.
Perfect for following this planetary dance.
Love these posts, thankyou.