Great time to check out Venus

Viewable planets in the evening sky at the moment. Photo / Mark Mitchell

With three viewable planets lighting up our night sky at the moment, it's a great time for astrophotography and stargazing.

Herald photographer Mark Mitchell took this image from Waikanae of the moon and Venus paired closely together.

Mitchell said the western sky view, which he captured about 7pm on Sunday, made for a spectacular sight.

Jupiter was also visible somewhere in the background of the image, he said, but would only look like a star.

An astronomer from the Stardome Observatory and Planetarium in Auckland said the image was a "very nice" depiction of the moon and Venus closely aligned.

"With three viewable planets in the evening sky at the moment, there are great opportunities to capture an image like this."

The astronomer said these alignments with the moon can occur any time of the year if there are viewable planets in the night sky and are much more common than planetary conjunctions.