Today, its Thanksgiving Day here in the United States. A time for family to gather together and count our blessings -- or more likely gossip and talk about politics and watch American football games on television.
For this blogger this day was also a perfect clear evening of planetary photography. Tonight I was able to capture a wonderful trio of planets with the beautiful Young Moon just above bright Venus and fainter Jupiter and Saturn just 35 minutes, or so, after sunset.
The planets Venus and Jupiter are respectively the third and fourth brightest
celestial objects in the night sky after the sun
and moon. Saturn is no slouch in brightness either in the early evening. While Jupiter is nine times brighter than Saturn, while Venus is about seven
times brighter than Jupiter -- some 63 times brighter
than Saturn; the ringed giant planet still shines as brilliantly as a 1st-magnitude star -- one of the brightest stars visible in Earth’s night sky.
The crescent of the Young Moon can be seen just above Venus in line between Jupiter and Saturn along the ecliptic -- the orbit of Earth around the sun, or from our perspective here on Earth, the line the sun takes across the sky during the daytime.
By tomorrow, Friday, November 29th, Luna will travel higher into the sky and appear just beside faint Saturn. Hopefully I will be able to snap a photo of this event for y'all.
Until next time have a wonderful Dixie evening, a Happy Thanksgiving Day, and keep looking to the night skies, y'all.
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