Astroblog: Venus, Mercury and the Moon, June 10, 2013

Monday, June 10, 2013

Venus, Mercury and the Moon, June 10, 2013


Venus, Mercury and the Moon as seen from Largs Bay, Adelaide on 10 June at 5:44 ACST. This was taken with my Canon IXUS at 3x Zoom ASA 400 and 1/8 of a second exposure. Unfortunately the dust on the CCD chip ruins the picture a bit, and you will have to embiggen the picture by clicking on it to see Mercury though. The colours were more vivid in real life, and the Moon, Venus and Mercury really easy to see.	Venus, Mercury and the Moon as seen from Largs Bay, Adelaide on 10 June at 6:11 ACST. This was taken with my Canon IXUS at 3x Zoom ASA 400 and 4 seconds exposure. Mercury is easily seen to the upper right of Venus, and you can see the reflection of both the Moon and Venus in the water. Click to embiggen.

Taken with my Canon IXUS at 3x Zoom. ASA 400 and 6 seconds exposure at 6:15 ACST. Mercury is easily seen to the upper right of Venus, and you can see the reflection of both the Moon and Venus in the water much better than the last image. Click to embiggen.	Taken with my Canon IXUS at 1x Zoom. ASA 400 and 6 seconds exposure at 6:17 ACST. Bord scale view, and you can see the reflection of both the Moon and Venus in the water again. Click to embiggen.

Cloud has been my bane during the line up of Jupiter, Venus and Mercury. Days and days of cloud, even when the rest of the sky was clear, cloud would lurk around where the planets gathered. covering them totally. After a day of clear blue sky the clouds would gather at sunset.

Well, I finally got to see the line-up tonight, after a spectacular sunset with just a few clouds glowing red on the horizon, the wire thin Moon, Venus and then Mercury popped out of the darkening twilight, as the horizon went through a a glorious series of colours. Eventually I got to see Earhshine and the reflections of Both the Moon and Venus in the sea. Brilliant.

Labels: Mercury, Moon, Venus