Stunning composite captures the meeting of Venus and Jupiter

Stargazers have been been witnessing an astronomical treat over the past week as Venus and Jupiter have inched their way closer together, creating a dazzling spectacle in the night sky.

While the conjunction happens every year, rarely do the two planets look so close – this week they appeared less than one degree apart, although in real terms they were still more than 370 million miles from each other.

The phenomenon occurs because, although the planets in our solar system are millions of miles apart, they all orbit on a similar plane, creating the effect of coming together as they pass one another. This week’s was particularly spectacular because the meeting came between our brightest planet, Venus, and largest planet, Jupiter.

Astrophotographers from all over the world have been out and about capturing stunning images of the conjunction, including Soumyadeep Mukherjee, based in Dhanbad, India. Over ten days he captured the two planets traversing the sky until they ‘kissed’ on Wednesday, March 1, creating the stunning composite above.

‘For the last couple of weeks, Venus and Jupiter have stolen the attention of astrophotographers,’ he says. ‘They were inching close to one another, slowly but surely, and I was lucky enough to capture their relative movement for the last ten days.

‘I used a Nikon D5600, Sigma 50mm and Benro Rhino tripod throughout. The aperture was maintained at f/2.8 and ISO was kept 200 for all the images. Shutter speed varied from 1/3 seconds to 1 second, depending on the lighting condition. All the images were taken at a similar time, between 6.10pm and 6.20pm.