Night Sky Photography -- 03-11/13/14-2024 -- The Moon & Jupiter Over Three Nights

Greetings & Salutations fellow stargazers!

Last week over the course of several evenings, I was able to photograph the progression of the Moon rising in the western sky to meet with, and pass by, the planet Jupiter an hour after sunset. These photos were taken over the course of the evenings of March 11th, 13th, and the 14th -- cloud cover prevented me from capturing any photos on the evening of the 12th.

The first photos taken on the evening of Monday, March 11th show a very young crescent moon just above the treetops with Jupiter high overhead, as well as a close-up shot of the beautiful crescent moon.

The next photos taken on the evening of Wednesday, March 13th show the meeting between our lovely Luna and Jupiter in the evening shy. I used the tree in my backyard to frame the shot, which came out beautifully if I do say so myself.

A close up shows the line of Jupiter's own largest moons: Io, Callisto, Ganymede, and Europa as faint but still visible dots.

Earlier the same evening before the sunset I was able to capture these outstanding photos of a pair of passenger jets flying past the crescent moon in the clear evening sky with the sunset reflecting off them. 

The last photos were taken on the evening of Thursday, March 14th showing Luna passed Jupiter and meeting the Pleiades Star Cluster in the evening sky. The wide shot shows the distance the Moon has traveled from just the evening before from Jupiter and its position just below the Seven Sisters and the nearby Hyades Star Cluster. The close-up of the Moon and the Pleiades shows all the major stars of the cluster beautifully.

I hope y'all enjoyed my photos as I enjoy presenting them to y'all. Have a wonderful day and be sure to keep your eyes to the night skies, ya hear!

Night Sky Photography -- 02-07-2024 -- Mars Returns To The Early Morning Sky

Greetings & Salutations, fellow stargazers!

This morning I got up about an hour before sunrise and took a small drive to the tallest local point near my home which has a largely open and unobstructed view of the eastern horizon above the treeline, which happened to be in the center of my hometown of Chester, South Carolina.

I set up my tripod and was able to capture a couple of really good photos of the Moon and our own planet's two closest neighbors: Venus and Mars. The first shot I took at the top of the hill overlooking downtown Chester, and the second near the bottom using the power line pole and wires for the foreground. The three heavenly bodies appear in a roughly uneven triangle in the sky.

The planet Venus is, of course, the third-brightest object in the sky seen here from the surface of our Earth after the Sun and Luna (our Moon) and is usually most visible after sunset and before sunrise making it one of the first evening "stars" in the night sky, as well as the last of the morning "stars" -- depending on where Venus lies in relation to its orbit around the Sun compared to Earth.

At present, Venus is visible just two hours before sunrise here in the Northern Hemisphere. Its orbit is taking the planet lower in the sky dome towards the eastern horizon and the rising Sun in the mornings.

In contrast, Mars has been, until recently, on the other side of the Sun in relation to Earth, and thus invisible until about the beginning of this month in the glare of the sunrise. However, The Red Planet is slowly rising away from the Sun in the early morning hours.

As you can see in the photos I took, bright Venus is easily visible with the light of the Sun reflecting off the hot, hellish clouds that cover the planet. Cold and distant Mars, by contrast, is very dim since its farther away in its orbit from our vantage point here on Earth, just barely visible in the light of the coming sunrise less than 45 minutes later. 

As Venus sets and Mars rises, our two closest planetary neighbors will appear to move closer and meet in the early morning sky next week with their closest approach (or, conjunction) happening in two weeks on the morning of Wednesday, February 21st of this year.

Night Sky Photography -- 11-09-2023 -- The Crescent Moon & Venus & The Winter Circle Stars

Good evening and salutations, fellow amateur stargazers and night sky enthusiasts.

Here in North America, the month of November brings with it the return to the late night/early morning sky of the Winter Circle (Winter Hexagon) Constellations.

The following are the photos I took early in the morning of the brightest stars of the Constellations Orion, Canis Major, Canis Minor, and Taurus -- as well as all the bright stars of the great Winter Circle asterism.

Orion The Hunter can be seen overhead accompanied by his faithful dogs: Canis Major and Canis Minor once again chasing down their adversary, Taurus The Bull.

This heavenly struggle is easily spotted by locating the stars of the "Orion's Belt" asterism which (as I've noted in previous night sky posts) can help any novice stargazer locate the position of the Constellation Orion and how they point in a direct line between the bright stars, Sirius (The Dog Star) in Canis Major and the equally bright red giant star, Aldebaran (The Eye of the Bull) in Taurus.

The Winter Triangle asterism connects the Hunter with his Dogs with the three points of the Triangle being Sirius (the brightest star of Canis Major) and Procyon (the brightest star of Canis Minor) with the star Betelgeuse, the shoulder of Orion.

The vast Winter Circle (or Winter Hexagon) asterism encircles Orion the Hunter and can be spotted by finding the seven major stars: Procyon, Castor, Pollux, Capella, Aldebaran, Rigel, and Sirius.

As the autumn months here in North America give way towards the end of the calendar year and the coming winter season, the Winter Circle and its constellations will begin to appear in the evening skies. 

In addition, I was also able to capture these really good shots of the crescent moon and the bright planet Venus -- now a "morning star" -- in the eastern sky overhead.

Night Sky Photography -- 03-25-2023 -- Luna & The Seven Sisters Meet In The West

Greetings and Salutations fellow stargazers!

I was a bit worried that I wouldn't be able to present this evening's night sky photographic presentation because of the frequent spring showers and cloudy skies that bless South Carolina this time of year.

In fact, it did rain earlier in the day, but thankfully cleared up by mid-afternoon and giving us some blessedly clear evening skies so that I was able to capture a few beautiful shots of our lovely Luna in her Crescent Moon form sharing the heavens with the equally stunning "Seven Sisters" of the Pleiades Star Cluster.

The Pleiades Star Cluster (also known as the "Seven Sisters" or Messier 45) is an open star cluster containing middle-aged, hot B-type blue-white stars to the north-west of the constellation Taurus. The beautiful stars of the Pleiades are among the nearest star clusters to Earth located at a distance of about 444 light-years (or 136.1 parsecs) from our Sun.

Night Sky Photography -- 02-22-2023 -- Five Moons In One Photo!

Greetings and Salutations, fellow night sky enthusiasts!

I've been monitoring the progress of the planets Jupiter and Venus as they slowly begin moving ever closer to the Wednesday, March 1, 2023 conjunction in the evening sky.

This evening I set up my tripod and camera near SC Hwy 321 to get a good background and foreground shot of how the two planets and the Young Crescent Moon appear to travelers.

I was about to get a really outstanding shot of the road and traveling cars with the heavenly display in the background. Then another close-up shot of Luna's lovely crescent form next to Jupiter and Venus just above the tree-line. Then two more close-ups of the Moon and Jupiter....and when I reviewed my pictures to edit and label, I found I'd captured not just one, but five moons in my close-up.

Jupiter's four largest moons: Io, Callisto, Ganymede, and Europa all appear in the close-ups with our own moon looming large in the foreground.

 

Although the four Galilean Satellites (or Jovian Moons) appear very small compared to our own Luna because of the distances -- Jupiter currently sits at approximately 536 million miles, (or 862.6 kilometers) from our Earth -- in actuality three of the moons that orbit the largest gas giant planet are actually larger than our own Moon, which is actually the 5th largest of the estimated 200+ moons and satellites that orbit the other planets in our Solar System.

Luna, our own lovely lady, has an equatorial diameter of 2,159.2 miles (3,475 km).

Jupiter's closest and smallest of the four Galilean Moons is Io, which has a equatorial diameter of 2,260 miles (3,640 km) -- about less than a few percent larger.

The next moon, Europa, has an equatorial diameter of 1,940 miles (3,100 km) -- or only about 90% of the Moon's diameter.

Ganymede is actually the largest moon in our Solar System with an equatorial diameter of 3,275 miles (5,270 km), which makes it slightly larger than the planets Mercury which has a diameter of 3,030 miles (4,878 km) and Pluto (which is STILL a planet!) at 1,473 miles (2,370 km).

And finally we have Callisto, which has an equatorial diameter or 2,995 miles (or 4,821 km).

Another fun fact is that all of those four Jovian Moons actually orbit Jupiter farther than our own Moon actually does, though the tidal forces of the largest planet of the Solar System causes them to orbit much faster.

Our own Lunar satellite orbits the Earth at an average of about 238,855 miles (384,399 km) -- about the space that could be occupied by 30 Earths. The Moon travels around our planet once every 27.3 days in an elliptical orbit that varies at certain times of the year.

Io travels around Jupiter at an average distance of 262,000 miles (422,000 kilometers) from the gas giant, and orbits the planet once every 42 hours, or 1.8 Earth days.

Europa is next out at about 417,000 miles (671,000 kilometers) and orbits Jupiter once every 85 Earth hours, or about three-and-a-half Earth days.

Ganymede is about 665,000 miles (1,070,000 kilometers) from Jupiter completes one orbit at about 172 hours, or just over one Earth week.

And finally, Callisto sits at about 1,170,000 miles (1,883,000 kilometers) and takes about 17 Earth days to complete one orbit of the planet.

Well my friends, I hope y'all learned something new and interesting about one of our more interesting planetary neighbors today. Also keep watching the skies (on hopefully blessedly storm-free evenings) for Jupiter and Venus to meet in conjunction soon.

Till then have a blessed evening and be sure to keep your eyes to the night skies, y'all.

Night Sky Photography -- 01-23-2023 -- Young Crescent Moon & Planets Venus, & Saturn In Evening Sky....and a UFO?!

Good evening fellow stargazers!

Today I want to share with y'all my latest night sky photographic offerings for your viewing pleasure. I was about to capture outstanding shots of the beautiful waxing crescent moon aligned with Venus and Saturn in the western sky after sunset.

Taken about fifty minutes after sunset these two photographs show the young crescent moon near the two planets Venus and Saturn close to the western horizon. The day before Venus and Saturn were in close conjunction (about a moon's width apart) but I was unable to get a photo of this due to an evening rainstorm and cloud cover.

As you can see in my first photo, the two planets are almost perfectly aligned in the evening sky. The second photo is a close-up shot of the three heavenly bodies. Distant Saturn appears brightest about 40 minutes after sunset making it easy to spot among the first evening "stars" to appear in the sky dome. Hot Venus, the bright evening star, is of course the third-brightest body visible from Earth in the Solar System, after our lovely Luna and the Sun.

If you look closely at the first picture you might notice something a bit eerie. A small, bright colorful object to the left of the shot.

Is it an actual UFO?! Did I actually capture photographic evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence?!

Weeeeeeell, not exactly. Its actually a commercial passenger jet plane flying in its path and the colors are the bright running lights of the plane as its moving as the photograph was being shot. No aliens here.

Oh well....stranger things can happen if you keep looking at the night skies.

Night Sky Photography -- 05-01/02-2022 -- Conjunction of Venus & Jupiter and Very Young Crescent Moon With Mercury

Good evening fellow stargazers!

Well my friends, this month has started out being pretty good for planet watching.

On the first day of May, I got up early to capture some really good shots of the conjunction between Venus and Jupiter about 45 minutes before sunrise.

As you can see in my first photo, the two bright planets are very close to each other, roughly 0.3 degrees (or the width of the moon) apart in the morning sky. They were actually closer the day before with Jupiter to the upper left of Venus at 0.2 degrees apart, but unfortunately cloud cover prevented me from capturing a shot that morning.

Even though Venus and Jupiter appear next to each other in the sky, they are really nowhere near each other in space being separated by 430 million miles (690 million km), or nearly five times the distance between Earth and the Sun!

The two planets will continue to move away from each other with Venus moving slowly towards the sunrise and Jupiter higher in the sky towards another conjunction with Mars on May 29th of this year.

The next set of photos I took the evening of the next day showing the tiny planet Mercury in the western sky along with our lovely moon in her very thin crescent form.

The winter constellations are sinking towards the western sky as summer looms closer, as seen by the position of the bright star Aldebaran in the Constellation Taurus The Bull in the photo closer to the horizon.

Mercury itself is moving closer to disappearing behind the western horizon with them but will be making its appearance in the eastern sky in the mornings with its fellow Wanderers next month in June. This is because Mercury's orbit around the Sun -- about 88 days -- will move the small planet around to the far side of the Sun for a least the next month, or so.

Throughout the morning of June, all five of the visible planets to Earth in the sky dome will be visible in a line following the ecliptic in the early morning hours before sunrise in order from closest to the farthest! (It should also be noted that the distant planets of Uranus and Neptune can also be seen in this lineup with a telescope, or really good camera lens if you know where exactly to look).

I will do my best to try and capture an image of that event when the time comes, until then I hope y'all have enjoyed my planetary photography. Until next time, be sure to keep your eyes to the skies, y'all hear!

Night Sky Photography -- 04-25-2022 -- Parade Of Planets Before Dawn

Good morning friends and fellow stargazers!

Well, early this morning -- well before my usual wake up time -- I went into town to the highest point with a clearest view of the eastern sky to capture a couple of really beautiful shots of four planets: Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, in a parade across the predawn sky, along with the crescent moon.

As you can see, the planets are all, more or less, in a straight line across the early morning sky with Luna passing beneath them. Tomorrow (April 27th), the moon will be a thin crescent beneath Jupiter and Venus.

Spotting the planetary parade is easy with Venus being the brightest object in the early morning sky once the moon passes below the horizon towards its New Moon (or No Moon) Phase. From there you can easily find the other three fainter Wandering Stars in the line of the Ecliptic.

Jupiter and Venus themselves are moving closer towards a glorious close conjunction in the morning sky on Saturday, April 30th and Sunday, May 1st, when the two planets will be less than the moon's distance from each other (or about 0.2 degrees apart) with Venus passing just under Jupiter from our view here on Earth.

Now then y'all might be asking where is Mercury in all this? Well, the answer to that question is the planet closest to the Sun is better seen in the evening sky closer to the west and sunset. Right now Mercury is close to a conjunction of its own with the Pleiades Star Cluster on Saturday, April 30th.

Hopefully, with God and clear skies willing, I'll be able to capture both the close conjunctions of Venus and Jupiter, as well as Mercury's "meeting" with the Seven Sisters this weekend.

Until then keep your eyes to the skies, y'all!

Night Sky Photography -- 04-04-2022 -- Saturn & Mars Conjunction In The Morning/Luna & Pleiades In The Evening

Good evening, fellow stargazers!

Early this morning, I was able to capture a couple of great photos of the conjunction between the planets Saturn and Mars about an hour before sunrise.

The two planets can be seen with the bright planet, Venus about 90 minutes, or so before sunrise. Despite being millions of miles apart and Saturn being a far larger planet than little Mars, both appear to be about the same size in the early morning sky and about the width of the full moon apart.

The three planets will remain close to each other for the rest of the month of April, and will be joined by Jupiter lower towards the rising sun. By the middle of the month, around the 14th and 15th of April, the four planets will appear in a parade following the ecliptic in the early morning sky. This blogger will do his best to try and get a great shot of that event.

As morning made way to evening, I captured another beautiful shot of the Young Crescent Moon together in the sky with the Pleiades Star Cluster and the larger nearby Hyades Star Cluster in the Constellation Taurus The Bull in the western sky.

Located about 153 light years (47 parsecs) from the Sun, the Hyades is the nearest and one of the best-studied star clusters. From the perspective of observers on Earth, the brightest stars of the Hyades Cluster appears in the form of a V shape as the head of the bull along with the still-brighter Aldebaran, which is actually unrelated to the Hyades, as it is located much closer to Earth and appears along the same line of sight.

The Pleiades by contrast are about 444 light-years (136 parsecs) from the Sun and its brightest seven stars (also known as the Seven Sisters) are more tightly packed together in a small dipper.

Together the Hyades and the Pleiades both form another asterism referred to as the Golden Gate of the Ecliptic where all the planets of our Solar System and the moon travel across the night and morning sky, passing between these two star clusters which form the two posts of this virtual gate at the two sides of the ecliptic line.

Well folks, I hope y'all enjoyed my planetary and night sky offering for this evening. Please let me know what y'all think in the comments below, as well as any information I might have left out.

Until next time be sure to keep your eyes to the skies, y'all hear!

Night Sky Photography -- 10-09-2021 -- The Moon & Saturn With Antares In The Southwestern Sky

Good evening my fellow stargazers!

This evening I captured several really outstanding shots of the crescent moon and Venus, with the bright red star, Antares, and most of the major stars of the Constellation Scorpius the Scorpion in the southwestern sky above my neighbor's houses about 45 minutes after sunset.

As you can see in the first photo, the wide shot, the three heavenly bodies are clearly visible, with Venus in close conjunction with Luna in her beautiful crescent glory. In the second photo I took a close-up of the crescent moon, which will soon be a First Quarter Moon on the evening of Tuesday, October 12th this week.

My third photo is a close-up of Luna and Venus with the red giant star, Antares -- the Heart of the Scorpion -- making up the third part of the heavenly triangle. 

As I've mentioned in previous blog posts, Antares is a red supergiant star approximately 604 light-years from our Sun and actually part of a binary system with the largest, Antares A (a Scorpii) visible to us as the 15th brightest star visible from Earth in the sky dome. The bright orange-red coloring of Antares is clearly visible on camera.

In my final photo, I outlined the first part of the Constellation Scorpius The Scorpion visible in the tree-line. You can actually just make out the final star of the arms of the scorpion visible through the trees at the bottom right of the shot.

Venus will continue to be visible with the stars of the Constellation Scorpius for at least the next two weeks as Venus continues to move steadily eastward away from the sunset. Antares and Venus will soon have their own conjunction in the evening sky on Saturday, October 16th -- one week from today. God and cloudless skies willing, I should have some photos of that event as well.

Until next time, have a good night and y'all be sure to keep your eyes to the night skies, y'all hear!