The first week of March 2021 saw a conjunction of Mars and Pleiades, the closest one since February 2006. To catch this conjunction in a dark sky, my friends Ugur, Selçuk and I decided to spend the night near Tirilye, a small town northwest of Bursa, and by the coast of Marmara Sea. We settled by an olive grove. We would normally drive back home after the moonrise at 1:30, but the night COVID-safety curfew (between 2100-0500) meant we would stay the whole night.
This evening panorama from shows all the bright winter stars and prominent constellations shining high in the southwest. Starting with Sirius and continuing clockwise with Procyon, Pollux, Capella, Aldebaran and Rigel forms a large hexagon in the sky, an asterism known as Winter Hexagon. With Mars shining near Pleiades (M45), Winter Hexagon looks like it is temporarily modified, and perhaps more symmetrical too.
The second picture is a closer look at Mars and Pleiades. It was a delight to see red Mars shining next to bluish stars of Pleiades and with a long enough exposure to accumulate photons, the reflection nebulae of Pleiades add more blues to the scene.
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