There was a lot of news in the past week about the Planetary Parade. This article by Preston Dyches on the NASA science site says: “Planet parade” isn’t a technical term in astronomy, and “planetary alignment” can refer to several different phenomena. As the planets of our solar system orbit the Sun, they occasionally line up in space in events called oppositions and conjunctions.
A half and hour before sunset (6:02 PST) on February 27, 2025, I drove out to Rodeo Beach, California, hoping to make a photograph of the planetary alignment. It was cloudy and the wind was probably 15 mph (6.7 m/s). Though the winds were offshore, the cloud cover was moving very slowly.
After an hour and a half, it became clear the weather wouldn’t improve soon. It seemed it wouldn’t clear up for a couple of hours. I took the above photo with Venus visible in the West. Mars was visible (out of the frame) almost 90° overhead. I thought about how Ansel Adams had made commitments to getting a great photograph, considered the cool temperature and the wind, then I decided to leave to go out for dinner.
(Above) Stellarium screen capture of the southwestern night sky from Rodeo Beach, California, on February 27, 2025 at 7:27 PM PDT. Maybe it would have looked like this IRL, had it been clear.