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Four Planets 

Mercury, Venus, Jupiter… and Earth at the bottom!  
Captured tonight, shortly after sunset.
I caught them closest together on May 26, when I caught them in a time-lapse video, hosted on +YouTube: http://youtu.be/p2NibPZtsQs
The video is best switched to 1080p resolution and viewed full screen.  Shot at nearly 400mm focal length, in the video you can actually see that the planets are round, and not points of light, like the stars appear to be.

The planets are now moving apart, but it happens slowly, so you should be able to see them in a line like this in the coming evenings, about 45 to 60 minutes after sunset. 

This photo is best viewed large, in the higher resolution I uploaded it in (you can click on the picture to see a larger copy).
#astronomy #astrophotography #planetconjunction  

Four Planets: Mercury, Venus, Jupiter and Earth

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43 thoughts on “Four Planets ”

  1. I read articles predicting the event +Saravana Yuvaraj, like this one: 
    Memorial Day Planet Parade: See Jupiter, Mercury & Venus
    http://www.space.com/21310-jupiter-venus-mercury-memorial-day.html
    Venus is one of the brightest objects in the night sky, so it's the first thing you see as the sky gets darker 30-45 minutes after sunset.  Then Mercury and Saturn become visible.

    I also use a program StarWalk on my smartphone, and that shows a star map so I can identify objects in the sky.

    I should have mentioned when I posted this that it's easier to see the planets in this picture if you click on it to see a larger copy.

  2. Nice +Jeff Sullivan 

    I remember back in the mid '80s during my photo walks days at Mono Lake Tufa Reserve being called into doing the weekly star walk at South Tufa on July 4th because all the rangers and Inyo NF staff were involved with the annual fireworks (which were shot from Old Marina!) for the traffic jam on 395 from 167 to well south of 120…395 was only two lanes back then, not 4.

    Above us, we had all but three planets visible, either naked eye or with the spotting scope. I had promised 7 planets at the start, and when the count stopped at 6, some wondered aloud where the 7th was. I think my reply was something to the effect of "don't look up; look down."

    Watching the distant fireworks just above the Lee Vining Creek Delta and against the Sierra Nevada was fun, although more photogenic from near the Old Cemetery, where I'd captured them before.

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