Night Sky Photography -- 07-15-2024 -- Mars & Uranus Conjunction Before Sunrise!

Greetings fellow stargazers!

On the morning of Monday, July 15, 2024, your favorite blogger had to wake up early -- about 90 minutes before sunrise to be exact -- to drive out into the country a little and find a nice spot to capture the conjunction of the planets Mars and Uranus. I was also able to capture some wonderful shots of the planet Jupiter and the bright red giant star, Aldebaran, in the Constellation Taurus the Bull.

After setting up my tripod, I captured this first photo over the tree line facing south-southeast. I decided not to label this one so you can get an idea of how I saw it for myself.

You can see what appears to be two red points and a large bright point set in a oblong triangle in the nautical twilight as they appeared to the naked eye. The large bright spot is Jupiter, while the smaller red spots are Aldebaran positioned to the right of Jupiter and the planet Mars in the upper corner.

Using the lens as a filter to capture more points of light not quite visible to the naked eye, I captured nearly all the stars of the Hyades Star Cluster -- which make up the "face" of the Constellation Taurus the Bull -- and the nearby Pleiades Star Cluster between Mars and the current position of Uranus in the night sky as seen from the Earth's surface. The wider shot also captured the nearby stars Elnath and Capella closer to the east and coming sunrise. The close up shot shows both the Hyades and Pleiades clusters more clearly.

Mars is easy to spot due to its bright red-orange hue, though distant Uranus is impossible to see with the naked eye and requires a really good lens to spot. Thankfully I have a good 35X Sony Optical Zoom lens on my camera and, at maximum magnification, was successfully able to capture a really good close-up of the two planets together at just half-a-degree apart.

Although they appear to be "meeting" in the early morning sky from out vantage point here on the surface of the Earth; the two worlds are actually quite a distance apart.

The large ice giant planet Uranus, the 7th planetary body in our Solar System, is roughly about 1.86 billion miles (just over 3 billion kilometers, or 20.16 AUs) from our Earth at the moment, while Mars, the 4th planet and our nearest planetary neighbor, is about 155 million miles (around 250 million kilometers, or 1.67 AUs) from Earth.

Finally, I took a couple of good shots of Jupiter, now currently a part of the Constellation Taurus for at least the next month in the early mornings. The first show a close-up of Jupiter with bright red Aldebaran, the "Eye of the Bull" close by. The final show captures all the stars of the Hyades Cluster, which I highlight outlining the head of the Constellation Taurus.

The large gas giant planet, Jupiter, the 5th planet in the solar system, is currently about 532 million miles (857 million kilometers, or 5.7 AUs) from the Earth. Aldebaran is much father away at a distance of approximately 65 light-years from our Sun and is the 14th brightest star in the night sky as seen from Earth.

Later this month, on Tuesday, July 30th, the crescent moon will cross between Mars and Jupiter in the early morning sky. Over the next month both planets will continue to move closer to each other towards their own conjunction in the morning sky on Monday, August 12, 2024....which I hope to be able to photograph, God and good clear skies willing.

Well folks, I hope that y'all enjoyed my photos and to all my fellow amateur sky watchers be sure to keep your eyes to the night skies, y'all hear.

Monday Meme: Happy Summerween Y'all!

 

Happy Independence Day America! - The Declaration Of Independence

 

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

The signers of the Declaration of Independence of the original thirteen American States ratified by the Second Continental Congress at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on Thursday, July 4, 1776: 

Georgia:  

Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

North Carolina:  

William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn 

South Carolina:  

Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward Jr., Thomas Lynch Jr., Arthur Middleton

Massachusetts:
John Hancock

Maryland: Samual Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll 

Delaware: 

Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

New York:

William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris 

New Jersey:

Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

New Hampshire:  

Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple

Massachusetts:

 Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry 

 Rhode Island: 

Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut: 

Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New Hampshire: 

Matthew Thornton    

Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson Jr.,
Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

Pennsylvania:

Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor,
James Wilson, George Ross

Declaration of Independence by American artist John Trumbull. (1826)

From one of the original thirteen independent American States, 
this blogger would like to wish each and every one of my fellow Americans across the United States a very
 Happy Independence Day! 

American Veterans At Gettysburg 1913

Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress.

This photo was taken at a reunion of American veterans of the War Between The States (American Civil War) 1861-1865 at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania on Thursday, July 3, 1913 showing Confederate and Union veterans shaking hands across the stone wall on Cemetery Ridge at the Gettysburg National Battlefield -- 50 years after the Battle of Gettysburg (July 1-3, 1863).

Monday Meme: Sesame Street Vs Bugs Bunny