The West Coast was treated to a rare celestial show on Tuesday night as the moon, Mars and Venus could be seen closely grouped together in the night sky.

The conjunction was visible to the naked eye from most places on the west coast and saw the two planets and the moon grouped in a triangle: Mars at the top, Venus on the bottom right and the moon on the bottom left.

“This happens about once every decade, when we have something this close,” Derek Kief, astronomer at the H.R. MacMillan Space Centre, told CTV Vancouver. “But we do have frequent conjunctions.”

According to Kief, conjunctions themselves aren’t very rare – another conjunction will be happening at the end of February – but they aren’t usually grouped so close together.

The three objects looked as if they were an arm’s-length away from each other, but according to Kief, were actually very far apart.

“We’re talking hundreds of thousands of kilometres away from each other,” said Kief. “But the orientation from our perspective makes it seem like they’re really close.”

According to Kief, the two planets and the moon were the brightest objects in the sky, with the moon appearing the biggest and brightest. Meanwhile, Venus appeared with a yellow-white colour while Mars had a red-orange colour.

According to NASA, conjunctions have no real astronomical value but create an interesting picture in the sky.

With files from CTV Vancouver