Astroblog: My First View of the Planet Dance (26 May 2013)

Sunday, May 26, 2013

My First View of the Planet Dance (26 May 2013)


Jupiter (roughly middle in the gap between the clouds), Venus (just under cloud band) and Mercury (off to the right of Venus) at around 5:55 pm ACST as seen from the beach at Largs North, Adelaide. Image taken with a Canon IXUS, 3 x Zoom 400 ASA, shutter speed 0.8 seconds. Click to embiggen (or you won't be able to see them)	Close-up crop showing the three planets (need I say click to embiggen?).

After days of solid cloud, finally the sky was a bit clear as I went down to the beach. I went down about 15 minutes after sunset, and could immediately see Venus above a patch of cloud.

Of course, by the time I set up the cloud had covered it, it waited and waited, every so often Venus would peek out then disappear. Finally, at bit after civil twilight Venus came out from under the cloud, just as Jupiter appeared in a break between two cloud bands.

I shot off a few images before Venus finally vanished behind the horizon cloud. I didn't see Mercury with my uaided eye, but it did show up when I looked at the images.

Hopefully the horizon will be clearer tomorrow .

Labels: Conjunction, Jupiter, Mercury, Venus