Taking photos of Saturn, Mars and Venus

I have been trying to take photos of Saturn, Mars and Venus as they are all up in the sky after sunset. Anyway, I managed to get Venus, but getting Mars and Saturn was near impossible to see, even an hour after sunset. I managed to get something visible, but I think the sky was too bright to see them. The first image is what it looked like without any processing, the second, with processing.

ISO 100, 1 sec exposure, 55mm, f/5.6 and manual (therefore cr2). What would have been the best way to take photos of those planets?

Venus is easy to see, Saturn is the one at the very top, almost in line with Venus. Mars is the one on the very left with the thin cloud above it.

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I've not managed to capture these myself...the sky always seems too bright, and by the time it's not the planets have set. Plus my views to the west are rubbish...I ought to go out somewhere the next time it's clear.

Your focus does seem to be a bit off, particularly noticeable on Saturn and Mars, which won't help.

Are those images cropped, or do the planets fit in nicely at 55mm? I'll go a bit wider myself I think...try and get some landscape in the shot too.

They were cropped at 100%. They fit well within the 55mm lens, as there was so much excess that I removed. It is very difficult to get the focus exactly right as I have noticed. I thought I had them correct, as the street lights that were very far looked correct.

If you're having trouble finding the planets, try loading the free software from stellarium.org.

Here's a sample photo of Saturn taken 2 days ago, with a Canon T2i, 300mm f/4, and two Kenko teleconverters (1.4x & 2x). I enlarged the photo 250% so you can see it better, but it's pretty fuzzy.

Doug

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naddieuk wrote in post #10686199
ISO 100, 1 sec exposure, 55mm, f/5.6

I think you're overexposing. My picture of Saturn is a few f-stops dimmer if I did the math right. My ISO was 800 (+3stops), but f/16 (-3stops) and shutter of 1/5s (-2.x stops).

For Venus you would need much less exposure than Saturn; it's really bright!

Doug

Hey Guys ... was lucky enough to have seen the four planets and the moon together two weeks back (from Sydney, Australia) ... here's my attempt to get them all in frame without too much sky glow, street lights and cars driving by me on the street. Few later attempts did get better but Mercury had set by then.

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legoman_iac wrote in post #10774091
Hey Guys ... was lucky enough to have seen the four planets and the moon together two weeks back (from Sydney, Australia) ... here's my attempt to get them all in frame without too much sky glow, street lights and cars driving by me on the street. Few later attempts did get better but Mercury had set by then.

Nice capture, I'm guessing Mercury is the one just above the roof (?)

Yeah, Mercury near the roof ... Venus next to the moon, Mars top left (EDIT: top right) and Saturn lower right from Venus.