Night Sky Photography -- 02-15/16-2024 -- The Moon & Uranus/The Golden Gate of the Ecliptic

Good evening fellow stargazers!

I'm thankful to report that here in my corner of South Carolina we've been blessed to have some clear skies overhead the last two evenings so that I can present to y'all some really good night sky photographs of our beautiful moon close to two beautiful heavenly bodies. 

The first photos were taken after sunset on the evening of Thursday, February 15th showing our lovely Luna meeting the distant giant planet, Uranus.

The first shot I took is the wide shot of the Moon -- just one day away from its First Quarter phase -- positioned between the giant planet, Jupiter, and the two open star clusters: The Hyades and The Pleiades (also known as the "Seven Sisters") that make up the Constellation Taurus The Bull. Uranus is positioned just next to the Moon in the night sky that evening. The second photo is a close up where y'all can faintly see the distant seventh planet of our Solar System.

 

Uranus may look small compared to Luna, but in actuality the blue-green gas giant planet is four times wider than our Earth and circles the Sun at a whopping 1.8 billion miles (or 2.9 billion kilometers) in its average orbit. It takes the light of the Sun about 2 hours and 45 minutes to reach Uranus.

At its present distance in our orbits around the Sun, Uranus is about 1.83 billion miles (or 2.94 billion km) away from Earth, which is just about 19.67 AUs.

The next set of photos I took were on the evening of Friday, February 16th when Luna -- now in her First Quarter Moon phase -- moved higher into the night sky and was positioned right next to the Pleiades in the sky inside The Golden Gate of the Ecliptic. This is the place in the sky dome where the Ecliptic (the orbital plain of the Earth around the Sun) passes between the Hyades and Pleiades with both the star clusters represent the "posts" of the virtual gate that makes up this asterism.

The first two photos are close-up shots with the first showing the details of the Moon in her First Quarter Phase, and the second is a wonderful capture showing Luna and the Seven Sisters meeting in the night sky.

The third is a wide shot of the major stars of the Constellations Orion The Hunter and Taurus The Bull showing Luna inside the Hyades and Pleiades "gates" -- note the positions of Uranus and Jupiter beneath the Moon. The final shot being a closer and more detailed shot of the Hyades and Pleiades with the Moon. All of which came out rather beautifully.

Well I hope y'all enjoyed my photographic offerings for the evening. I'm hopefully that we will continue to be blessed with clear skies enough to get at least two more interesting celestial views before the month of February is out.

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!