Between Aug 4 and 13 I captured some images of the conjunction of Venus and Jupiter. More of the story is here.
Two Planets Appear to Meet
Solar System
Moon Meets Mars
On the evening of 29 June 2025, Mars and the Moon showed a close alignment. Skies were cleared enough to allow this photo at 9:48 PM local CDT. They appeared close together. But, the Moon was about 392,000 km and Mars 288,000,000 km from my location on Earth. Light traveled a bit more that 1 sec from the Moon to reach my camera. Light took nearly 16 minutes to travel from Mars to my camera.
Planetary Alignment 2025
During the final week of February the planets are aligned across the sky from southwest to southeast just after sunset. This sky chart shows them each circled on 22 Feb at about 6 PM. The sky will not be completely dark. Wait a few more minutes. Don’t wait too long for it to get darker. Mercury is closest to the Sun and requires an unobstructed horizon. It will descend to the horizon if you wait too long. This view will persist for the last week of February.
The text of each circled planet name is small. Enlarge the image if you are able. They should read in order from SW to SE Mercury, Saturn, Neptune, Venus, Uranus, Jupiter, and Mars. That makes 7 planets. Look down at your feet for planet 8, the Earth.
Mars Occultation | 13 Jan 2025
The occultation was to begin just after 8 PM local time. The sky was clear but it was 15˚ F outside. The location in the sky was ideal relative to my house. I set the tripod with camera on the front porch and started recording images. The interval timer was set to trip the shutter every 2 minutes. After about 10 minutes, Mars was hidden behind the Moon. I brought the tripod and camera indoors and watched a TV program with my wife until 9 PM. Mars was to emerge from occultation at about 9:10. Just before then I set up the tripod and camera, started the interval timer, and went back inside. Every 3 or 4 minutes I went back outside briefly to re-point the camera since it wasn’t tracking the Moon.
The images turned out well. I used Pixelmator Pro to layer the images into this one composite. This image shows two locations of Mars at 8:01 and 8:03 prior to occultation on the left of the Moon. From the Earth point of view, the Moon was moving left as it crossed in front of Mars. When Mars started to emerge on the right side it was 9:11 with the final position at 9:19 PM local time. This image is best viewed on a larger screen.
.
My camera has no interval timer built in. I used this intervalometer from JJC. It is not expensive and does a good job.
Perhaps you remember a story from 20 years ago about Mars being as big as a full Moon. In case you don’t, here is what Wikipedia has to say about that:
“The Mars hoax was a hoax circulated by e-mail that began in 2003, that claimed that Mars would look as large as the full Moon to the naked eye on August 27, 2003. The hoax has since resurfaced each time before Mars is at its closest to Earth, about every 26 months.”
It is very obvious that Mars and the Moon are not even remotely the same size as shown in this enlarged part of an image.
Viewing Heavenly Bodies | 2025
Desktop planetarium software helps plan viewing sessions and keep track of the planets and Moon. Many products are available for all computer platforms and smartphones. A browser search yields links to many sources often open source and free. They can be customized to your location and have a nice look and feel. For Android and Mac phones and tablets, I like SkySafari. It isn’t free but is inexpensive. For my desktop computer and laptop, I am a big fan of Starry Night 8 from Simulation Curriculum. It is more costly, but sales are often offered.
If you are near Fairfield Iowa, consider visiting the Maharishi Vedic Observatory. The link is my tour when I visited. There is no large telescope dome. Instead, it is made up of 10 solar and celestial measurement instruments, or sundials, and a collection of inner circles. One is pictured here.
How I See It 