Next month Venus and Mars will be so close together in the evening sky they'll look like one very bright star. They will be a spectacular sight through binoculars and telescopes, but at the moment they are still some distance apart. Look to the west after sunset on any evening at the moment and you will see them shining there, looking like a pair of stars close a couple of finger widths apart, above the treetops.

Venus is by far the brighter of the two - a silvery lantern blazing in the twilight. To its upper left, Mars is fainter and more of an orange colour, but still very pretty. In advance of their February close encounter they are slowly moving towards each other, so look for them every chance you get so you can see them coming together in the dusky sky.

Stuart Atkinson

Eddington Astronomical Society of Kendal