Good evening fellow Stargazers!
Well, now we're getting into the summer months down here in my little corner of Dixie. That means much later evenings, fireflies, noisy Cicadas, and of course some interesting early summer night sky planetary photography for the month of June.
As the final day of May gave way to June, I was able to capture a some really outstanding photos of the both the planets Venus and Mars in the evening sky after sunset.
As I mentioned in a previous post, our two nearest planetary neighbors are both traveling higher into the sky dome away from the setting late spring sun on their way to an early July conjunction as they both approach the bright star, Regulus, in the Constellation Leo The Lion. The faster orbit of Venus and the slower orbit of Mars will bring both "wandering stars" into a conjunction in the evening sky on the evening of Sunday, July 2nd of this year.
Over the course of three blessedly clear evening skies, I was able to capture some really cool evening photos of the two planets in the western sky about 45 minutes after sunset; as well as get a few outstanding shots of Mars traveling through the faint Constellation Cancer The Crab and the distant Beehive Star Custer (M44).
The Beehive Star Cluster is a faint open cluster of hundreds of stars located an estimated 577 light-years (or 176.9 parsecs) from our Sun.
Here are the photos I took of the two planets on the evening of Wednesday, March 31st, with Mars centered inside Cancer The Crab located between the Beehive and the binary star Tegmine (Zeta Cancri) -- also known as the "shell of the crab". You can also see Venus -- currently the brightest of the heavenly bodies in the western sky until the Moon appears later in the month -- lining up with the two "twin stars" Pollux and Castor of the Constellation Gemini The Twins.
In one of these shots, I was able to capture all of the major stars of the faint zodiac constellation -- this blogger's birth sign (fun fact) -- along with the approximate location of the Beehive Star Cluster, which isn't visible except in close-ups with higher exposure, which I captured much better in the close-up shots of Mars and the Beehive.
The next two shots I took over the course of the two nights of Thursday, June 1st and Friday, June 2nd when Mars began to move through the Beehive Star Cluster, the Red Planet surrounded by the small, faint points of light. By late Saturday, June 3rd, Mars will be above the Beehive; though it'll still be in the area of the Constellation Cancer a short while longer as it travels higher in the evening towards Regulus.
On Thursday, June 1st, Venus moved into a nearly perfect straight alignment with the Gemini Twins. Venus will also be moving higher towards the Constellation Cancer and will also buzz by the Beehive later this month on Monday, June 12th and Tuesday, June 13th as it races to catch up with Mars.
I hope y'all enjoyed my presentation and my photos. It was again my pleasure to share them with y'all. Hopefully we will be blessed with good clear skies this June down here in my little corner of Dixie so I can share more interesting night sky photography as we move closer to the summer equinox and the official start of the new season.
Until next time, keep your eyes to the night skies and y'all come back now, ya hear!
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