Tag Archives: Venus

Mercury and Venus – May 22, 2020

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Friday was another day when, because we didn’t get the predicted rain, I was able to enjoy some astrophotography: in this case, a conjunction of Venus and Mercury.  (A conjunction is when two objects appear near each other in the sky.)  Note that, even in the picture, you can see that Venus is a crescent.  Like the Moon, Venus has phases, depending upon how much of its sunlit side we can see.  In fact, it is even more of a crescent than it looks in the picture – only about 5.3% illuminated – as you can see in this neat animation.  If you zoom in, you can see that Mercury is also not a circle – it is 67% illuminated.  The two are different because they’re in different parts of their orbits relative to the Earth.  Venus is close to passing between the Earth and the Sun, so we see very little of its sunlit side.  The lines between Mercury and the Sun and the Earth and the Sun are almost perpendicular, so we see a much larger percentage of its sunlit side.

I have rarely seen Mercury, so this was a real treat.  It’ll be visible for a few more weeks in the evening sky, so if the clouds stay away, I’ll have another look.

Camera Geek Info

  •             Canon EOS 60D in manual mode set at f/5.6, 1/30 second exposure, ISO 800
  •             Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS USM lens, set at 300 mm, manual focus
  •             Tripod

Moon and Venus – April 26, 2020

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TaurusMoonVenus 20200426

Sunday evening the Moon moved closer to Venus in a lovely spot in Taurus.

Camera Geek Info (Moon and Venus in Taurus)

  •             Canon EOS 60D in manual mode set at f/4.5, 1 second exposure, ISO 6400
  •             Sigma 24-70 mm f/2.8 EX lens, set at 42 mm, manual focus
  •             Tripod

MoonVenus 20200426

Camera Geek Info (Moon and Venus)

  •             Canon EOS 60D in manual mode set at f/4.5, 1/25 second exposure, ISO 500
  •             Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS USM lens, set at 135 mm, manual focus
  •             Tripod

Moon 20200426

Camera Geek Info (Crescent Moon)

  •             Canon EOS 60D in manual mode set at f/4.5, 1/320 second exposure, ISO 500
  •             Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS USM lens, set at 135 mm, manual focus
  •             Tripod

Moon and Venus

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MoonAndVenus 20200424

Ever since planting my virus victory veggie garden earlier this month, I have become like a farmer, obsessed with the rain.  The forecasters keep saying the rain is coming, and then it doesn’t.  The upside of that is: clear skies for astrophotography!

On April 13, I tried to capture a picture of Comet C/2019 Y4  (Atlas), but no joy.  It was falling apart and too dim to find from my suburban driveway.

Last night, the Moon and Venus made a lovely combo at sunset.  Even with the 300 mm lens on the camera, Venus looks like a bright blob – not circular, but not with any shape.  In my husband’s 15×50 Image Stabilized binoculars, it looked the same as with the camera.  However, with my 8-inch telescope, it was a beautiful crescent (although much fatter than the moon).  It was an interesting demonstration of the benefit of a bigger aperture.

I thought the new Moon setting into the trees was also a lovely sight.

MoonInTree 20200424

Camera Geek info (Moon and Venus)

  • Canon EOS 60D in manual mode set at f/2.8, 1/20 second exposure, ISO 500
  • Sigma 24-70 mm f/2.8 EX lens, set at 32 mm, autofocus

Camera Geek Info (Moon and trees)

  • Canon EOS 60D in manual mode set at f/5.6, 1/2 second exposure, ISO 500
  • Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS USM lens, set at 300 mm, autofocus
  • Tripod

Dell City Astrophotography April 2019

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Last weekend we took a break and visited Dell City, Texas, where we stayed in a lovely B&B, enjoyed gorgeous sunsets and sunrises over the Guadalupe and Cornudas Mountains, and enjoyed seeing the stars and planets.

As the song goes (sing it with me, y’all):

The stars at night

Are big and bright

Deep in the heart of Texas!

It is true!

And I had great fun trying to get some good pictures of the beautiful sky full of stars.  But just like folks buying new telescopes need to be reminded that they won’t get the views that they see in the published pictures from the Hubble Space Telescope, I had to learn that the view from a telephoto lens isn’t the same as the view from an 8-inch telescope.  So the Messier objects, which are nice objects to find in my 8 inch telescope, are mostly fuzz balls with my telephoto lens, even with a sky-tracking camera mount and the ability to take a long picture.

The other thing I had to deal with was an embarrassment of riches – there were so many stars that it was hard to make out the constellations.

I started the evening of April 27 trying to find the two brightest available comets, but they were really too dim to be seen.  I did get familiar with the constellation Leo, and saw a beautiful meteor pass through it – it’s even in my picture, though it’s very faint and you have to zoom in.

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Camera geek info:

  • Canon EOS 60D in manual mode set at f/4, 30 second exposure, ISO 1000
  • Sigma 24-70 mm f/2.8 EX lens, set at 24 mm, manual focus
  • iOptron SkyTracker with ballhead
  • Tripod

I turned from there to finding Messier objects, and found M13 in Hercules, M4 in Scorpio, and M80 in Scorpio.  Fuzzballs all.

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Here’s a closeup of M4 with the blinking lights of an airplane.  (M4 is the fuzzy one.)

M4AndAirplane

Camera geek info:

  • Canon EOS 60D in manual mode set at f/4, 30 second exposure, ISO 1000
  • Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS USM lens, set at 70 mm, manual focus
  • iOptron SkyTracker with ballhead
  • Tripod

Finally, I waited until Jupiter rose to get a picture of it with its line of moons.

JupiterAndMoons20190428

Camera geek info:

  • Canon EOS 60D in manual mode set at f/4.5, 30 second exposure, ISO 1000
  • Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS USM lens, set at 150 mm, manual focus
  • iOptron SkyTracker with ballhead
  • Tripod

The next evening it was cloudy, so we got up early the following morning for a last view of the stars.  It was totally worth it – we got a lovely view of Sagittarius between Jupiter and Saturn and the Milky Way just before dawn.

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Camera geek info:

  • Canon EOS 60D in manual mode set at f/5, 30 second exposure, ISO 1000
  • Sigma 10-20 mm f/4-5.6 lens, set at 13 mm, manual focus
  • iOptron SkyTracker with ballhead
  • Tripod

I also was able to zoom in on Jupiter and a couple more Messier objects.

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Camera geek info:

  • Canon EOS 60D in manual mode set at f/4, 30 second exposure, ISO 1000
  • Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS USM lens, set at 70 mm, manual focus
  • iOptron SkyTracker with ballhead
  • Tripod

I’ll finish with Venus at sunrise on April 27.

VenusGuadalupeMtns20190427

Camera geek info:

  • Canon EOS 60D in manual mode set at f/7.1, 1/8 second exposure, ISO 100
  • Sigma 24-70 mm f/2.8 EX lens, set at 24 mm, autofocus

I can’t wait to go back and try this again!

 

Moon and Venus

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MoonAndVenus20180615

Last night, as we exited the movie theater, we saw a beautiful conjunction of the Moon and Venus, with a bright Venus floating above a crescent moon.  The cell phone pictures did not do it justice, nor did my hastily set up picture shot from the car window.

MoonAndVenus20180616

So I prepared to take pictures tonight.  The Moon had moved!  Still a beautiful conjunction, yes?

Moon20180616

And since I had the tripod set up, I captured a picture of the Moon as well.  It would be fun to explore its cratered surface.

Camera geek info:

Moon and Venus 6/15/18

  •             Canon EOS 60D in manual mode set at f/4, 1/25 second exposure, ISO 800
  •             Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS USM lens, set at 70 mm, autofocus on moon

Moon and Venus 6/16/18

  •             Canon EOS 60D in manual mode set at f/4.5, 1/5 second exposure, ISO 320
  •             Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS USM lens, set at 112 mm, manual focus on moon
  •             Tripod

Moon 6/16/18

  •             Canon EOS 60D in manual mode set at f/5.6, 1/60 second exposure, ISO 320
  •             Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS USM lens, set at 300 mm, manual focus on moon, IS off
  •             Tripod