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Moon, Mars, Venus Setting Over Mount Whitney

Planet moon conjunction February 20, 2015

Here's another photo of the Moon – Mars- Venus conjunction setting over Mt Whitney in "blue hour" twilight light a couple of weeks ago. Astronomer +Philip Plait has a nice write-up on the event his Bad Astronomy blog on +Slate, which features the time-lapse video I created:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2015/03/08/moon_mars_venus_sunset_appulse_video.html

The moon was actually in a thin crescent phase, but being positioned towards the sun, as seen from the moon the sun was illuminating a nearly "full earth", which provided a lot of "earth shine" to illuminate the portion of the moon's face not directly lit by the sun. It's a pretty cool phenomenon to see, best seen a couple of days before or after the new moon, when the moon is close to the horizon in morning or evening twilight.

I anticipated this alignment with Mount Whitney using +The Photographer's Ephemeris , as I did a moon rise over Mono lake tufa and a lunar eclipse setting behind jagged peaks during the G+/Panoramio Eastern Sierra photowalk in June 2012: https://plus.google.com/107459220492917008623/stories/cdfdaf4b-4df7-3549-a9a7-3f02ea6ee5f7

#science #sciencesunday #astronomy #astrophotography #landscapephotography
More of my astrophotography videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/JeffSullivanPhoto

 

Comments

25 thoughts on “Moon, Mars, Venus Setting Over Mount Whitney”

  1. +Dottie Hardage Although it was an astronomical event involving distant celestial bodies, I definitely wanted to feature earth as a prominent component in the composition, but it does evoke memories of those old Apollo photos of the earth from the moon as well. You could probably take a photo similar to this of the earth from the moon as well.

  2. If there is one thing I've learned about those who take such photos, it is that you see things in an image or scene that the ordinary person misses. I'm thankful to share in your enhanced views in your photos.

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