The planets Jupiter, Venus and Mercury were in conjunction Sunday night May 26, the closest they'll appear until 2021. Here's one of the images I captured before they set.
These planets are close together in the evening sky this week, so every night I've been trying to capture them together on the horizon in the twilight hours before they set. The first night the clouds were too thick. The second night I was shooting sunset in high winds at Mono Lake with the Sierra Nevada as a high western horizon, so I caught a few pictures of the planets, but they set too quickly to capture a time-lapse video. The third night was just right. It was relatively clear to the west, I was in a high shooting position with an apparent horizon lower than my position (less than 0 degrees elevation), and fortunately that was Sunday May 16, the night when the planets were closest together, forming a tight triangle.
There was still wind to deal with, so I changed position a few times to minimize it. I could only use one camera because I had loaned my daughter one of my tripod head quick release plates the day before, and it was still on her camera back home. There wasn't a lot of light and I was shooting with a 2X teleconverter on my 70-200mm lens at close to 310mm, so my aperture was limited to f/8, forcing me to bump up the ISO to minimize shutter speed in that wind. (The best I could do was 1/4 second shutter speed, which is why minimizing wind turned out to be critical.) Fortunately I worked out all the trade-offs in time to capture about four hundred frames, enough to create a time-lapse video.
I've posted the time-lapse and summarized my four nights of efforts to capture this event on myblog on +Blogger: http://activesole.blogspot.com/2013/05/venus-jupiter-mercury-conjunction-1080p.html
The video is hosted on +YouTube : http://youtu.be/p2NibPZtsQs
It's best switched to 1080p resolution and viewed full screen.
#astronomy #planetconjunction
Venus, Mercury and Jupiter in close conjunction May 26, 2013
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Comments
chingona
That's wonderful…
wow!
😮 INCREIBLE
watched it the 25th evening; simply beautiful
Awesome
magestuoso impresionante
yo quiero a marte!
SE VEN MUY LINDOS
Wonderful Jeff—always a favorite experience of mine to see these right at dusk. Thanks for sharing.
amazing
Thank you! I've posted the time-lapse video and summarized my four nights of efforts to capture this event on my blog: http://activesole.blogspot.com/2013/05/venus-jupiter-mercury-conjunction-1080p.html
i'm not that smart i just look for it
Good stuff, +Jeff Sullivan ! 🙂
Nice!!
+Debra Stuart funny tagline
I say that
its realy nyc pic its so beautiful nd mariculous image
its realy nyc pic its so beautiful nd mariculous image
Wow, Buenas noches
Thank you for posting this event. I spaced it out and didn't remember to look up Sunday night. Awesome!
Who told you that Mercury, and Venus were far enough from the coma of the Sun now, that they can be differentiated from the perspective of the Earth, and from the coma light of the Sun? You need to stop listening to NASA, and start using the brain God gave you, and the common reason that guides it. These are not The Three Stars, that you think that they are.
You can try again tonight +Sylvia Iyott. The planets won't be in such a symmetric triangle, but they'll still be close together.
wow, and no "end of the world announcements on the news? Wonderful photo though!
Triforce.
I just went outside and seen them! Thanks for the info +Jeff Sullivan . =D
Nice
Incredible…..
very nice…..
Nice
Fabulous!
This is the beauty of science
Epic
Nice
سبحان الله
For anyone on the U.S. West Coast, tonight they'll still be in an interesting and close configuration, with Mercury, Venus and Jupiter in a nearly-straight line, visible 30 to 60 minutes or so after sunset. (I'm heading out shortly to set up.)
Wow!
Great shot!! Congrats!
Nice
That is so cool
Thanks everyone! I've updated my astrophotography album following the lunar eclipse this week, and I'll be adding lunar rainbow ("moonbow") photos from this week in the coming days as well: https://plus.google.com/photos/107459220492917008623/albums/5742407635442467969