Every eight years the path of Venus, as viewed from the Earth, crosses directly through the Pleiades star cluster. On April 3rd the bright 'evening star' will be directly in the center of the Seven Sisters, or Pleiades, and it will be a very fine target through binoculars. It can be found for the first 3-4 hours after sunset, due west. Venus is by far the brightest object in the evening sky so you should have no problem finding this.
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| Venus passes through the Pleiades |
I just checked this evening (Thursday April 2nd) and already the juxtaposition of extremely bright Venus and the blue-white shimmer of the Pleiades is remarkable through my 10x50 binoculars. The good news is that the bright first quarter Moon to the upper left of Venus does not cause any issues seeing this spectacle, and given the brightness of both Venus and the Pleiades (as seen through binoculars) this will be visible even with the light pollution of a big city. But ... you will need binoculars to truly appreciate this.
The best view will be on Friday April 3rd, but it will also still look quite impressive on Thursday April 2nd and Saturday April 4th.
More information in this Sky & Telescope article.
Image courtesy of NASA APOD and Fred Espenak.
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