MMJ Conjunction

[Bernoulli]

I missed the Moon-Venus-Jupiter conjunction last month, but here's tonight's Moon-Mercury-Jupiter conjunction. You can barely see a couple of Jupiter's moons.

50D, 109 mm, f 5.6, 4 sec, ISO 400

[Celestron]

Excellent image ! Job well done ! I did not know this conjunction was coming :( . You should send this in to www.spaceweather.com !

[Bernoulli]

Celestron, I didn't know either. I got up from a nap and looked out the front window and there it was. Had to find the tripod real quick!

I'll look into the spaceweather.com site, I think you've been featured on there yourself, right?

[strgazr27]

Beautiful image but at that Fl and exposure, Jupiters moons would not be visible. Again, a very well done image.

[Bernoulli]

Beautiful image but at that Fl and exposure, Jupiters moons would not be visible. Again, a very well done image.

I beg to differ. Here's a 100% crop from the image laid over the positions of the moons at the same time (not to the same scale). The smear in the image is due to the 4 second exposure. Io and Europa are probably grouped together.

Jupiter's Galilean moons would be almost naked eye objects if not for the big planet's glare, the big four have visible magnitudes between 5 and 6. They are easy objects for the camera if you have enough zoom to separate them from the planet's glare.

The spread between Callisto and Ganymede was about 10 arc minutes, about 1/3 the width of the full moon.

[Bernoulli]

If everyone will forgive me for obsessing, let's fix that white balance and try this again. Isn't RAW great!

[Celestron]

It is for some :( , i have a hard time working RAW :( . But i agree with you , i have taken lots of jupiter images at 2-secs with a 75-300mm @ 300mm on a tripod and captured all 4 moons but i have also caught at least 1 moon with my 18-55mm when the moons were in a good postion away from Jupiter .

[Adrena1in]

This is why I often fire up www.neave.com/planetarium and scroll the time forward to check for upcoming conjunctions and stuff. Not sure how accurate it is mind, but it's close enough I'm sure.

Oh and bloomin' lovely image! :)

[Bernoulli]

I'm not sure what really qualifies as a "conjunction" although that's what I called it. From the Moon to Jupiter was about 6.5 degrees which is quite a distance to me.

I think tonight the Moon will be well above Jupiter.

I'll check out neave.com to see what other photo ops are sneaking up on us.

[Celestron]

I'm not sure what really qualifies as a "conjunction" although that's what I called it. From the Moon to Jupiter was about 6.5 degrees which is quite a distance to me.

I think tonight the Moon will be well above Jupiter.

I'll check out neave.com to see what other photo ops are sneaking up on us.


What makes this one even more unique is it has Mercury and showing well i might add ! Thats another plus !

[Adrena1in]

Definitely decided Neave isn't quite right, but it's close. It says that on January the 16th next year there's going to be a solar eclipse in the UK, but it won't be visible from here. Neave does do weird things sometimes, but hey, it's free.

[Bernoulli]

What makes this one even more unique is it has Mercury and showing well i might add ! Thats another plus !

When I looked out and saw it I thought it might be Mercury but time was short and I figured I'd better shoot first and ask questions later.

There are about a dozen stars visible in the original image, but you can only see a couple on this reduced and compressed version.

[Bernoulli]

There are conjunctions everywhere it seems.

The first image is a wide shot of Venus taken from my deck. Sorry for the cock-eyed angle, I don't have a fancy motor mount.

The second image is a closeup of the first showing super-bright Venus and, a couple of degrees away, dim blue Neptune almost 5000 times dimmer. Once you know where it is, you can easily see it with binoculars.

[drevilsmom]

So how far away will Neptune be from Venus tomorrow? I'd love to see that.

[Bernoulli]

Venus is going up up up for a while. It passed closest to Neptune last Saturday, about 2 degrees away.

Next stop is Uranus, which is passes within about 1.8 degrees on Jan 22.

So just after sunset now you can see five planets at once with binoculars.

[Bernoulli]

And here we are 24 hours later.

[Celestron]

Another fine shot !

[Bernoulli]

Thanks buddy. I've been thinking about getting into deep sky photography. Maybe I'll start with some long exposures through the lens. That Venus/Neptune shot was only 30 sec at ISO 400 at f 2.8 (Tamron 17 - 55 mm @ 17) and I got down to mag 10 easy and mag 11 if I looked at the image carefully.

Can you recommend a lightweight mount just for my camera? I have a rather heavy mount for my big scope but I'm looking for something I can throw into the back seat and drive into the woods. I would have to have a tracking motor, but not a precision driver since I won't be doing any guiding. I just want to do some stacked 30 seconds or maybe a few minutes through my 50D and a low f lens.

Anyone have some recommendations for me?

[keith breazeal]

Here's one from last night. I shot this in Sutter Creek, Ca. Lens: 10-22mm

http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa5/KBVP/VenusMoonMtDiablosunsetIMG_5865a.jpg

[Sky of the Plains]

nice work guys! Im going to try it over downtown omaha tonight. This should be the new challange. Mercury is very hard to find, I finally spotted it yesterday

[Nighthound]

All are beautiful shots. Awesome work.

[Celestron]

Thanks buddy. I've been thinking about getting into deep sky photography. Maybe I'll start with some long exposures through the lens. That Venus/Neptune shot was only 30 sec at ISO 400 at f 2.8 (Tamron 17 - 55 mm @ 17) and I got down to mag 10 easy and mag 11 if I looked at the image carefully.

Can you recommend a lightweight mount just for my camera? I have a rather heavy mount for my big scope but I'm looking for something I can throw into the back seat and drive into the woods. I would have to have a tracking motor, but not a precision driver since I won't be doing any guiding. I just want to do some stacked 30 seconds or maybe a few minutes through my 50D and a low f lens.

Anyone have some recommendations for me?

best i'll tell you is you need an EQ mount . An altizumith mount will cause your stars to rotate and make it hard at stacking . You have to rotate each individual frame and thats not as easy as said . Good luck tho , hope to see your results soon ! Steve (NH) should be able to help you with some mounts tho . I use an EQ5 mount for my scopes , with dual tracking motors .

[jsc230]

Here's my attempt at the conjunction over the last 2 nights. I don't think I can make out any of Jupiter's moons in mine. These were taken off my front porch so they are just snap shots of sorts.

Joe Conklin

Dec 28th
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3291/3145771467_e5821def9b_o.jpg

and 2 from Dec 29th

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3091/3149978914_01875f33bf_o.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3255/3149148347_4de95ebeb3_o.jpg

[Sky of the Plains]

here is my take from Omaha Nebraska (clouds came just after this)

http://i478.photobucket.com/albums/rr148/Tyler_greatsky/CR1-10.jpg

[Bernoulli]

Welcome aboard Joe, and with such great pictures too!

Tonight I had a SUPER view of the Mercury/Jupiter and more distant Moon scene because I was 30,000 ft up. I even had a seat on the west side of the plane (on purpose). I tried to grab a shot with my point and shoot but to no avail.

How many of you get that nice red banding close to the horizon at sunset? We get it here in NW Arkansas due to a pervasive low-level haze out to our west. I guess air pollution can be a good thing.

Joe - are you sure you got those dates right? Aren't they really Dec 28 and 29?

My wife says all the pictures in this thread are pretty.

[jsc230]

Welcome aboard Joe, and with such great pictures too!

Tonight I had a SUPER view of the Mercury/Jupiter and more distant Moon scene because I was 30,000 ft up. I even had a seat on the west side of the plane (on purpose). I tried to grab a shot with my point and shoot but to no avail.

How many of you get that nice red banding close to the horizon at sunset? We get it here in NW Arkansas due to a pervasive low-level haze out to our west. I guess air pollution can be a good thing.

Joe - are you sure you got those dates right? Aren't they really Dec 28 and 29?

My wife says all the pictures in this thread are pretty.

Thanks, I didn't realize this was my first post.

You are correct I misdated those photos, probably because I didn't work on them until after midnight. I will fix that in an edit if possible.

Thanks,

Joe Conklin

[Adrena1in]

Can you recommend a lightweight mount just for my camera? ... I would have to have a tracking motor, but not a precision driver since I won't be doing any guiding.

I started with an EQ1 mount on a fairly flimsy aluminium tripod, but it was fine for a 4.5" Newtonian Reflector with my 400D piggybacked, so it should be fine for a camera alone. With a single-axis motor-drive you should be able to get one pretty cheap.

Alternatively, if you're a dab hand at making things, you could always have a go at making a Type 4 Double Arm Barn Door Tracker (http://education.jlab.org/tracker/index.html). I'm going to make one of these myself for those times when I go away on holiday and don't take my mount with me. The EQ5 isn't really very portable! ;)

[keith breazeal]

Here's tonight's shot(31 Dec.) with the Moon, Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, and others. The Sacramento Valley was totally fogged in, making for a different look.
40D, 10-22mm @19mm, f4.5, 15 sec.

http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa5/KBVP/Conjuction31Dec2008IMG_5983a.jpg

[Sky of the Plains]

Keith that is an amazing shot!! great work. I grew up in sacramento, and never knew there could be such beauty there.

Anyway, here are mine...

http://i478.photobucket.com/albums/rr148/Tyler_greatsky/Cr1-11.jpg

http://i478.photobucket.com/albums/rr148/Tyler_greatsky/CR2-11.jpg

[keith breazeal]

Thanks Tyler :) I shot that from Sutter Hill- just outside Sutter Creek.
Here's a shot at sunset while I waited for the above shot. I call this one "Sunset CME". It looks like a Coronal Mass Ejection coming from Mt. Diablo.

http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa5/KBVP/CMESunset31Dec2008IMG_5913a.jpg

http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa5/KBVP/SunsetandtheFogRollingIn31Dec2008.jpg

and a wider view of these earlier shot with some exposure cranking ;)

http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa5/KBVP/Moonscape31Dec2008.jpg

[keith breazeal]

10 Jan. 2009 full moon rise at sunset. A view of the California Sierra Nevada Mountains.

http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa5/KBVP/MoonRiseandSunset10Jan2009.jpg