Sunday, February 07, 2016
My Images of the Crescent Moon, Venus and Mercury on the Weekend
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| Morning sky on Saturday February 6 looking east as seen from Adelaide at 5:33 ACDST with the crescent Moon, Venus and Mercury. Imaged with a Canon IXUS 400 ASA 3xZoom 4 second exposure. (click to embiggen). | Morning sky on Sunday February 7 looking east as seen from Adelaide at 5:31 ACDST with Venus, Mercury and the crescent Moon. Imaged with a Canon IXUS 400 ASA 3xZoom 4 second exposure. (click to embiggen). |
For the first time in ages the morning sky was clear of cloud or fog. Getting up at 5:15 am I stumbled down the beach for these magnificent views of the crescent Moon (obvious) Venus (the really bright dot) and Mercury. I was able to see all of the line-up of Jupiter, Mars, Saturn, Venus and Mercury (with Regulus, Spica and Scorpius added to the mix).
Even with the sodium lamps from the street, and the giant glow from the Outer Harbour dock of some ship or other, the heavenly spectacle was magnificent. I tried to make a panorama, but sand is not exactly a stable imaging platform, and my mix of exposures wasn't ideal. I'll see if I can stitch it together later in the week, but I have a bunch of comet pictures to process.
Labels: Conjunction, Mercury, Moon, unaided eye, Venus
# posted by Ian Musgrave @ 11:46 pm 
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