Night Sky Photography -- 05-02-2023 -- Venus, Mars & The Moon With Four Asterisms

Good evening, fellow stargazers!

This evening I have some really good shots of two of our closest planetary neighbors, Venus and Mars; along our lovely Waxing Gibbous Moon, with four distinct astronomical asterisms in the same evening sky after sunset.

My first photo was taken an hour after sunset looking to the western sky where the winter constellations are starting to move lower and lower in the night sky dome. You can see the bright planet, Venus, quite clearly in the evening sky close to the Constellation Taurus The Bull.

The faint red-colored Mars is also visible just inside the Constellation Gemini The Twins just beneath the two brightest stars: Pollux and Castor. Both planets are currently visible near the Winter Triangle asterism -- the three stars: Betelgeuse (Constellation Orion The Hunter), Sirius (Constellation Canis Major "The Greater Dog") and Procyon (Constellation Canis Minor "The Lesser Dog"). Find the Winter Triangle, and you'll find the two planets for the next month at least until Mars moves higher into the sky by the end of May and into June. Venus will also move higher and appear beneath the "twin stars" just about where Mars appears now in the photo by Wednesday, May 24th.

In my next photo I captured a wonderful close-up of our lovely Luna in her Waxing Gibbous phase higher in the sky near the eastern sky just days away from becoming the Full Flower Moon -- the name given to the May Full Moon in North America -- on Friday, May 5th.

 

 

Luna currently sits just inside the larger Spring Triangle asterism, but just outside of the smaller unilateral Spring Triangle and the Great Diamond of Virgo asterisms, which are currently rising higher in the night sky as we well into spring here in the Northern Hemisphere.

As y'all can see in my next two photos the borders of both versions of the Spring Triangle are highlighted near the Moon. The smaller, more unilateral Triangle consists of the stars: Arcturus (Constellation Bootes The Herdsman), Spica (Constellation Virgo The Maiden), and Denebola (Constellation Leo The Lion). The larger Triangle includes Arcturus and Spica with the bright star Regulus, the "Heart of the Lion".

I couldn't quite capture Spica in frame with the larger Spring Triangle, although I captured it perfectly in the first photo showing the unilateral Spring Triangle and highlighted its location along with the other stars and Luna in both photos.

 

My final photo shows the four stars of the Great Diamond of Virgo with the Moon just outside of its boundaries. The Great Diamond consists of the three stars of the unilateral Spring Triangle, with the fourth star, Cor Caroli (Constellation Canes Venatichi "The Hunting Dogs") making up the fourth point in the Diamond. 

 

I hope that y'all enjoyed my night sky and planetary photography for the evening. Until the next time, have a good evening and be sure to keep your eyes to the night skies, y'all hear.