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Posted by: Stu Feb 24 2012, 10:48 PM

FINALLY the cloud cleared today, and feeling like Trinity seeing the clear sky for the first time, in the Matrix sequel, I went up to the castle and got some pics...

That last one shows the ISS moving through the sky too...

Posted by: Astro0 Feb 24 2012, 11:04 PM

That last one is amazing!

Posted by: john_s Feb 25 2012, 02:51 AM

And here's the view from Boulder, Colorado a few hours later- the Moon edging closer to Venus. Maybe we can take this all the way round the world and back to Stu again- who's next?

John

Posted by: bkellysky Feb 25 2012, 03:03 AM

Great shots! But I'm clouded out here in New York. Maybe I'll catch them when Tiangong 1 passes through tomorrow night:
http://heavens-above.com/PassDetails.asp?Size=600&OFOV=60&ORA=41.8427233538005&ODec=23.1028308384428&SatID=37820&lat=41.011&lng=-73.844&alt=43&loc=Ardsley&TZ=EST&Date=40964.9975845468&Mouse=?431,524

Posted by: Syrinx Feb 25 2012, 06:13 AM

Might be possible to spot Mercury too, right? It's about as high above the sun in the sky as possible right now.

Posted by: bkellysky Feb 25 2012, 12:21 PM

Mercury reaches its greatest distance out from the sun in the evening sky on March 5th. Check out This Week's Sky at a Glance at Sky and Telescope's web site to see when they suggest looking - early next week.
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/ataglance

bob kelly
bkellysky.wordpress.com

Posted by: Stu Feb 25 2012, 03:52 PM

Ahhh.... turns out I *did* manage to capture Mercury on one of my pics after all...

Wrote up last night's (wonderful!!) observing session on my blog, if anyone wants a read...

http://cumbriansky.wordpress.com/2012/02/25/planets-on-parade-3

Sigh. What an **idiot**... checked through the images I discarded after last night and yep, there it is, Mercury, higher and brighter, on one of them...

http://cumbriansky.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/j-v-m-and-m-feb-24-2012-sm-m-circled.jpg

Posted by: bkellysky Feb 25 2012, 06:44 PM

Saw Venus about 12:30pm - 1/2 a thumb-length directly below the moon! The moon wasn't hard to find, but a sky with broken coverage of cumulus clouds were very bright, but blocked the sun and help focus the eye at a distance.

Posted by: climber Feb 25 2012, 08:32 PM

Once again working in Arica Chile.
I can tell you that it's even more spectacular sitting on a beach, wearing shorts and having a beer . I'll try to take a shot tonight.

Posted by: NickF Feb 27 2012, 01:05 AM

Admiring dazzling Venus on this chilly Michigan evening I wondered this: if it had a moon of similar size and orbital characteristics to our own, would it be a naked eye object?

Posted by: ilbasso Feb 27 2012, 02:11 AM

Yes, easily, but it might get lost in Venus' glare if you didn't block out Venus. Jupiter's Galilean satellites can be seen with the naked eye in dark skies if you occult Jupiter with a tree or the edge of a building.

Posted by: ugordan Feb 27 2012, 09:48 AM

Saw Mercury for only the 2nd time in my life last night. Very low near the horizon after sunset and nowhere near the dazzling brightness of the Moon, Venus and Jupiter, but still a distinctly different color.

Posted by: Stu Feb 27 2012, 02:35 PM

I know what you mean... I always get a real buzz whenever I catch a glimpse of Mercury. As for its colour, yep, with you there, very different to the others. Don't know if it's because it's only ever seen in dusk- or dawn-light, but Mercury seems to shine with an almost liquid gold light. I was looking at it through binocs on Friday night while photographing the planet parade and thought that if a piece of amber could burn, its flame would be the colour Mercury shines in the sky. Quite beautiful.

Posted by: Tesheiner Feb 27 2012, 07:41 PM

Saw the whole group about one hour ago (19:30 local time) and Mercury was quite easy to find, following the line made by Jupiter and Venus (of course), about five-ten degrees above the horizon.

Posted by: bkellysky Feb 28 2012, 01:35 AM

I was snowed out on Saturday evening, but the photos I took on Sunday of the planets are up on my blog.
http://bkellysky.wordpress.com/2012/02/27/bright-planets-right-after-sunset/

I've seen (but no photos) Venus in the afternoon daylight Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday, without optical aid. The moon in the sky helps me focus to find Venus.

On Sunday, I needed binoculars to see Jupiter, even though it was near the Moon. But the I spent about a half-an-hour viewing Venus and Jupiter on Sunday afternoon, with my 200mm reflector. The half-phase of Venus is easier to see in the bright sky and I could make out the brighter of the two major cloud bands on Jupiter in the daylight sky.

One of my co-workers took a six-year-old neighbor out to see the planets on Sunday night. This is getting exciting!!

Posted by: AndyG Feb 28 2012, 12:44 PM

Yes, for much of its orbit - and not too lost in glare. A quick calculation here (there's nothing better to do since I'm clouded out from any observing today) and I'm getting a range of magnitudes for the Venusian Moon up to "our Mars" in terms of brightness. The separation is impressive: at favourable points in its orbit, there'd be .3 to .5 degrees between Venus and its Moon. (Contemplative Alternative History Guess) For pre-telescopic observers I suspect a heliocentric theory would develop quite quickly.

What would be particularly cute is that there would be stages in the orbit where Moonshine or Venusshine would be telescopically obvious.

Andy

Posted by: ceramicfundamentalist Mar 2 2012, 04:01 PM

For the past two weeks I've been insanely jealous of everyone posting pics of Venus, Jupiter, Mercury and the moon all over the internet. In my neck of the woods it's been cloudy since the middle of January!!! But last night the temperature got down really low, around -20C, most of the haze and cloud disappeared from the sky, and I made a trek through the snow up to the top of the hill behind the house. That's where I got this gem of Jupiter, Venus and Mercury.

This was my first time ever observing Mercury, after nearly 15 years of looking at the night sky. It was cold out there - by the end of the session my fingers were so numb I couldn't feel where the buttons were on my camera, at that point I was more or less randomly touching the camera and hoping that I was getting it right. But it was so worth it.

Posted by: Tesheiner Mar 2 2012, 07:52 PM

Definitely!

Posted by: Stu Mar 2 2012, 10:57 PM

FINALLY, after a week of cloudy skies, we got to see Venus and Jupiter again tonight...

Posted by: mhoward Mar 3 2012, 01:50 AM

The second one is fantastic.

Posted by: nprev Mar 3 2012, 02:34 AM

Beautiful, Stu.

Had my first good look at them last night due to local weather as well. Always enjoy V-J close approaches.

Posted by: bkellysky Mar 3 2012, 02:55 AM

Nice shots, folks!! Stu - good to see people out there taking in the sight!

bkellysky.wordpress.com

Posted by: Syrinx Mar 3 2012, 06:24 AM

I saw Mercury tonight for the first time in my life, 6:45pm. Easily visible and well above the Santa Cruz mountains to the west. It was about 2x higher in the sky than I was expecting. The next several nights look to be great opportunities for Mercury viewing here in the CA Bay Area.

Posted by: Stu Mar 3 2012, 08:37 AM

Thanks for the comments everyone, much appreciated.

Couple more of my pics from last night up on a Spaceweather.com page:

http://tinyurl.com/854dl96

Posted by: bkellysky Mar 5 2012, 12:44 AM

I've posted some more photos I took Saturday evening.
I don't have access to nearby castles (sorry Stu!), but the local high school is one of the highest places in town, so I was able to add Mercury, low in the west, to my photos of Jupiter and Venus. (Despite the 10 to 20 mile per hour winds shaking my tripod!)
Mercury was furthest out from the Sun today - see it soon as it will get dimmer quickly this week and next.
After you find Venus and Mercury, turn around and see Mars rising in the east.
(See my photo of Mars and surrounding stars.) We are closest to Mars on the 5th, so it's brightest and largest now. If you get a night with steady air, start with low power and then see how much magnification you can get out of your telescope. Can you pick out the gray patches of rock peeking out from the salmon-colored sands of Mars? There was a small part of the North Polar Cap (or some remaining clouds) still visible at one end of the planet when I looked last week. Mars is still tiny, even at high power, but it's worth a look. Just imagine yourself as an astronomer of old who watched the darker areas increasing as the polar cap shrank and thinking the darker area might be plant life (instead of dust being blown off volcanic rock).
I also got a nice 20-second exposure of Orion with the Hyades and Pleiades.
I'll post my friend's rotating Mars time lapse later tonight.
To avoid taking up space here: see http://bkellysky.wordpress.com/

Posted by: Stu Mar 5 2012, 12:46 AM

Teeth-shatteringly cold, crystal clear night in Kendal tonight, so of *course* I was at work!! But I dashed out in my break to grab a few photos, and was very glad I did...

...and my best ever image of Mercury, which was almost embarrassingly easy to find tonight...



Worth half an hour of dashing around like a lunatic!

Posted by: Stu Mar 11 2012, 10:21 AM

Fantastic planet-watching night last night, took what I suspect will end up being my best pics of the whole conjunction...

Full write-up, with lots more pics, at...

http://cumbriansky.wordpress.com/2012/03/11/an-unexpected-treat

Posted by: bkellysky Mar 15 2012, 10:29 PM

Lots of people have been asking me about those two brilliant dots in the evening sky! They have been pleasantly surprised that they really can see this astronomical event I was telling them about (not always the case).

I think this photo shows just how noticeable Jupiter and Venus are in the evening sky.
The planets are the two white dots below center.
I took this photo in my car, while stopped at the (long) light, a 2 second exposure while holding the camera on the steering wheel. (Compressed to fit this site.)
So, even amidst the lights of suburban New York City, I was able to see this outstanding sight!

bob

Posted by: Stu Mar 15 2012, 11:22 PM

I honestly think stargazers and skywatchers in Mordor would have more luck seeing this conjunction than I'm having here in Kendal. Since I took those last photos the sky has been hidden by a thick, heavy, sagging quilt of dank grey cloud, and the closest approach has come and gone, unseen by myself and anyone else in my part of the world. Absolutely shocking, and more than a little depressing to see all the gorgeous photos on websites and imagine the pictures I might have taken from the castle. I know frustration with the weather goes hand in hand with amateur astronomy, but jeez, this has been dreadful.

I'm now pinning my hopes on Monday night, when Venus will be shining above Jupiter, because I've always thought that vertical planetary arrangements are more striking than horizontal ones.

Posted by: bkellysky Mar 16 2012, 01:55 AM

Hi, Stu,
It looks like the most vertical* will be about the 25th or 26th, but about 10 degrees apart. The Moon joins them then, as well. But it'll be a great sight anytime this month and early April, so I hope that sometime in the second half of the month you get a spell of good weather.

*I ran Cartes du Ciel for my location, at 41 degrees latitude. Verticality may be on a slightly different date for other latitudes!

all the best,
bob
http://bkellysky.wordpress.com/

Posted by: cndwrld Mar 16 2012, 11:24 AM

The Astronomy Club at the European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC, near Madrid, Spain) got together on site to look at Venus and Jupiter. Their little time-lapse video shows the Sun, then the planets, setting behind 'our' castle.

http://vimeo.com/38535957

Posted by: Lunik9 Mar 16 2012, 04:22 PM

Superb pictures everyone, thanks for sharing. On 14th March there was a 3 degrees gap between the planets Jupiter & Venus.
From left to right; part of the constellation Orion (stars Betelgeuse & Bellatrix), the star Aldebaran, Messier 45 (Pleiades) and the conjunction.

Posted by: Stu Mar 18 2012, 12:10 PM

After a week of totally overcast skies, we finally got to catch up with Venus and Jupiter last night...

http://cumbriansky.wordpress.com/2012/03/18/finally-a-fleeting-view

Posted by: bkellysky Mar 18 2012, 05:37 PM

How did you get everything in focus?

Posted by: ngunn Mar 18 2012, 09:07 PM

This evening was perfect for planet watching from North Wales. I decided to take some white paper to a really dark spot and succeeded - just - in seeing shadows cast by Venus for only the second time in my life.

Posted by: bkellysky Mar 18 2012, 09:44 PM

Keep looking - Venus will be brightest around April 30. Furthest out from the Sun March 26.

Posted by: Stu Mar 20 2012, 10:26 AM

The show's just about over now (with our weather forecast, anyway!) so a last few photos...

...and a look ahead to what the rest of 2012 will offer "up there"...

http://cumbriansky.wordpress.com/2012/03/20/the-end-of-the-show

Posted by: Stu Mar 23 2012, 01:19 AM

Managed a few more pics tonight...

http://cumbriansky.wordpress.com/2012/03/22/an-evening-at-church

Posted by: Stu Mar 24 2012, 12:58 AM

Very hazy and misty tonight, not much use for "realistic" shots but a godsend for someone in the mood to mess about with a camera after a lousy day at work...

Posted by: stevesliva Mar 24 2012, 05:28 AM

Venus, Jupiter and the crescent Moon over the Olympics and Puget Sound. Shot with an iPhone 4.

Posted by: Stu Mar 24 2012, 09:38 PM

Remarkably, my weekend off has coincided with a spell of good weather, so today I hauled my tent, my telescope, a solar telescope and assorted "stuff" up to the castle to basically camp out for the day and chill. Saw a few sunspots, showed the Sun to about 50 passers by, and generally had a great, very relaxing time. When the Sun set there was a lot of mist n murk gathering in the west, and I almost packed up and came home, thinking there was no way I'd see Venus and Jupiter... but I decided to stay, thinking "You never know"... and I'm very glad I did...

(Note: the light piollution isn't actually *that* bad up there: long exposures to bring out sky colour and enhance the colours of the scene. I'll let others do the more realistic portraits )

Posted by: jasedm Mar 25 2012, 12:04 AM

Stu,

Re: light pollution - I consider myself very lucky that I can step outside my front door and see the Orion nebula without squinting. Friends who come down from London are routinely amazed by how many stars they can see in the night sky.

Great photos btw.

Jase

Posted by: 7B8 Mar 25 2012, 05:09 PM

Not as good as your images in particular because of the wind shaking my tripod. I took these photos on the Feb 25, 2012 in Shropshire, UK. The ISS passed right between Venus and the Moon.

Posted by: James Sorenson Mar 25 2012, 10:23 PM

I took this lastnight outside of my apartment.

Posted by: Stu Mar 25 2012, 11:23 PM

Beautiful clear sky tonight, and even better forecast for tomorrow...

Posted by: monty python Mar 26 2012, 05:13 AM

Great to have the seven sisters in the image! Frames up nice.

Posted by: brellis Mar 26 2012, 10:23 AM

I had a good one recently: an airplane, ISS, the Moon, Venus and Jupiter -- a quick education in Astronomy!

Posted by: Astro0 Mar 26 2012, 11:56 AM

I just wish I had a good camera to take shots like Stu's and others.
Nice view in the southern hemisphere tonight - Jupiter, Moon and Venus in a mutual event

Posted by: NickF Mar 26 2012, 07:24 PM

Here's the view over Lansing, MI last night.

Posted by: Ant103 Mar 27 2012, 03:27 PM

The view from France, during a Star Party event, the 24th .

http://www.db-prods.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/IMG_6371.CR2_.jpg

And later in the night.

http://www.db-prods.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/IMG_6372.CR2_.jpg

Posted by: Stu Mar 27 2012, 04:08 PM

Figuring I'd "done" the conjunction pretty comprehensively from Kendal Castle, last night I went down to Lake Windermere to try for some shots from there. I had a crazy idea to try and get a pic showing the Moon, Venus and Jupiter all reflected in the lake...

More on my blog, as usual...

http://cumbriansky.wordpress.com/2012/03/27/view-from-the-lake

Posted by: Stu Mar 28 2012, 09:58 AM

Another night, another photo safari, this time to the "picturesque coastal town of Arnside", famous for its stunning views 'across the bay', and its fish and chips, which draw people from miles around. Gorgeous clear night, with beautiful sunset colours, and the Moon, Venus and Jupiter blazing above, and reflected in, the waters of the bay. A great way to say goodbye, and thank you, to the conjunction...

Lots more at: http://cumbriansky.wordpress.com/2012/03/28/conjunctions-end

Posted by: Stu Apr 1 2012, 09:35 AM

Thought I was done taking pics of Venus and Jupiter, but the sky at our Ullswater campsite on Friday night was too good to waste...

More on: http://cumbriansky.wordpress.com/2012/04/01/camping-beneath-the-stars

Posted by: bkellysky Apr 1 2012, 04:20 PM

Told you Venus and Jupiter would still be great!!
Nice shot with the illuminated tent.
Get your binoculars or small scope out for Venus and the Pleiades on Monday and Tuesday night.
More (not as scenic) photos of Venus and Jupiter (and the Moon) at http://bkellysky.wordpress.com/2012/03/29/more-fun-with-venus-and-jupiter/

bob

Posted by: bkellysky Apr 3 2012, 01:29 AM

Venus passed by the Pleiades Cluster tonight. My photo is with a Canon XS f/7.1, 1/5 second, ISO1600, 21mm lens setting, looking through a 50mm (25x) eyepiece of a 200mm-aperture Dobsonian reflector telescope. Brightened and contrast increased in Photoshop Elements, compressed from 3MB to 0.64MB. Venus is vastly overexposed.

bob
bkellysky.wordpress.com

Posted by: vikingmars Apr 3 2012, 05:45 AM

A pic taken from my home close to Meudon Observatory on March 25. The sight was very impressive even from the center of Paris...

And the atmosphere was so cristal clear that the small gibbous disk of Venus was also visible with a 20x magnification... Enjoy !

Posted by: bkellysky Apr 3 2012, 11:03 PM

Venus will become more crescent-shaped and larger this month - already less than half full in this photo taken April 2nd, a few days after the one above.
I used a Canon XS attached in place of an eyepiece on a 200mm aperture Dobsonian Reflector Telescope, 1/50 second exposure ISO-400 using the prime focus technique. Photo cropped from a very large, mostly blank exposure.

Posted by: climber Apr 8 2012, 02:29 PM

I had a quiz last week asking whose 2 gods were the Gods of the Olympics in ancient greece! I am unable to double check but the answer was Zeus and Aphodite... which means Jupiter and Venus for the Romans. That's a kind of nice coincidence for the coming Olympics in London in another 4 months, right Stu?

Posted by: Stu Apr 9 2012, 02:44 PM

Absolutely, Climber!

Just found out that Nancy Atkinson (no relation, honest!) has been kind enough to use on Universe Today an astropoem I wrote about the conjunction...

http://www.universetoday.com/94482/planetary-conjunction-mashup/#more-94482

Just my own personal way of remembering a rather special time.