Moon, Venus Jupiter Will Line Up Tonight

Tonight we'll have the Moon, Venus and Jupiter lining up in the evening twilight sky, with a 9% crescent moon about 9% high in the sky around 9 pm (in a mid-California latitude).

Yosemite Valley isn't normally where I would go to see expansive views of the night sky, but on February 24, 2012 I was fortunate to arrive at Sentinel Bridge over the Merced River right before the moon set behind the valley rim, with Venus and Jupiter lined up above. I was able to capture this frame with the moon and Venus reflected.

Tomorrow evening the moon will be brighter and set later, forming a triangle with Jupiter and Venus.  With the evening sky also darker, it will be reminiscent of the Venus, Jupiter Moon triangle I caught last August:

Photos of the Moon, Venus and Jupiter Conjunction August 23, 2014
http://activesole.blogspot.com/2014/08/photos-of-moon-venus-jupiter-conjunction.html

Here's a photo of those three members of our solar system rising on the eastern horizon:

Then Saturday night the moon will be a brighter, wider crescent, and set later in a flatter triangle configuration, more reminiscent of this one earlier this year:

Crescent 9% moon set tonight, then Venus, Jupiter. Seen in Feb video w/Mars: http://t.co/2U0lvFpySU #astronomy pic.twitter.com/GwA8WbF5z0

— Jeff Sullivan Photo (@JeffSullPhoto) June 18, 2015

The easiest event of the next 3 nights to catch with earthly terrain will be the more linear configuration tonight, while twilight light still lights up your foreground landscape.

At the very end of the month, on the night of June 30, Venus and Jupiter will pass within 1/3 of a degree of each other, less than the diameter of the moon.  It will be similar to the conjunction (appulse) that I caught last year on August 18 on my Canon 70 with EF 70-200 mm lens and 2X teleconverter, but this time Venus will appear as a crescent.

Venus Jupiter Conjunction August 18 to Add Moon August 23

Venus plus Jupiter with four of its moons before dawn August 18

Venus - Jupiter Aug 18

The Venus -  Jupiter Conjunction was a rare event to catch Monday morning before dawn, as they slowly rose above the horizon as dawn approached.  It's always great to be out in the early morning, as many animals are active and others start to stir.  Two great horned owls gently called back and forth.  Black bears have been in our neighborhood at night lately gorging on peaches, and plums, blackberries and apples are starting to add to their buffet as well.  A group of coyotes were howling in the small orchard down the street, no doubt harassing a bear getting in the way of their hunt for rabbits and quail.  It was nice to have some moonlight for illumination, so I'd be able to see a bear approaching if I heard one leaving the orchard in my direction.  I kept a flashlight nearby to alert any bears to my presence, to avoid an awkward encounter.  Being so well fed our bears are large.  They're not overtly aggressive and they'll generally run away from people, but it's still a good idea not to startle one at close range.

Spectacular Venus-Jupiter Conjunction Graces the Dawn http://t.co/B8EGvM8gOl @universetoday #astronomy #space #news pic.twitter.com/YsAqbwFfKh
— Jeff Sullivan Photo (@JeffSullPhoto) August 18, 2014

As the week progresses Venus and Saturn remain close all this week, with the crescent moon arriving in their vicinity on the mornings of August 22, 23 and 24. Their closest encounter will be on Saturday the 23rd, with the two planets and the moon forming a triangle before dawn, 7 degrees on each side.

Bonus for my Twitter followers: Venus Jupiter conjunction with moon before dawn this Saturday August 23, around 5 am pic.twitter.com/pnEowjmz6e
— Jeff Sullivan Photo (@JeffSullPhoto) August 20, 2014

Update Friday morning, August 22:  The moon lined up with Venus and Jupiter this morning.  The moon will drop next to Venus and Jupiter tomorrow morning before dawn, to form a triangle.  Venus rose today at 4:53, so for best results, start looking by 5 am.  Where I plan to shoot tomorrow, all three celestial bodies should be above the horizon by 5:10 or so.  The times will be similar for other mid northern latitudes, with small adjustments for your position on the earth and in your time zone.

Plan for an interesting composition for the conjunction tomorrow using any of these four astronomy apps:

Tutorial on Moon Photography Planning

http://activesole.blogspot.com/2013/10/tutorial-on-moon-photography-planning.html  

The rest of the story:

As I shot Venus and Jupiter this morning there were large, fresh bear prints on the ground, and half of an apple that the bear carried 1/2 mile but couldn't finish.  The bears start arriving late at night this time of year, but as they compete for fruit in neighborhood fruit trees, they start to come earlier and earlier.

This large bear climbed up a neighbor's tree last year when we arrived to take his picture.  He growled at me at first, but stopped when that tactic didn't result in our departure.  On this night, our neighbor had called us at 8 pm to tell us that there was a huge bear which "looks like a bison", his back scraping the branches of the apple trees.  He definitely was well fed, and is probably back for more feasting this year.

Venus - Jupiter Conjunction at Dawn Today

Venus and Jupiter put on a show in the sky this morning as sunrise approached.  As seen from earth these two bright planets appeared to pass within 0.3 degrees of each other in the sky.

For the next shot I used a crop sensor camera to get a little more effective zoom out of my lenses:
Canon 70D, 70-200mm f/4 IS L lens, 2X teleconverter
400mm focal length x 1.6 crop factor = 640mm equivalent

I uploaded one of my shots to Flickr, and +Universe Today had already blogged it moments later.  Thanks +Nancy Atkinson!

Spectacular Venus-Jupiter Conjunction Graces the Dawn http://t.co/B8EGvM8gOl @universetoday #astronomy #space #news pic.twitter.com/YsAqbwFfKh
— Jeff Sullivan Photo (@JeffSullPhoto) August 18, 2014

Here's a link to the blog post by Universe Today:

"Astrophotos: Spectacular Venus-Jupiter Conjunction Graces the Dawn" http://t.co/ZpfYKZObWT pic.twitter.com/h58ORw48UM
— Universe Today (@universetoday) August 18, 2014

Venus, Jupiter, Mercury Conjunction (1080p, 30fps)

The planets Jupiter, Venus and Mercury are close together in the evening sky this week, so every night I've been trying to capture them together on the horizon in the twilight hours before they set. The first night the clouds were too thick. The second night I was shooting sunset in high winds at Mono Lake with the Sierra Nevada as a high western horizon, so I caught a few pictures of the planets, but they set too quickly to capture a time-lapse video. The third night was just right, relatively clear to the west, I was in a high shooting position with an apparent horizon lower than my position (less than 0 degrees elevation), and fortunately that was Sunday May 16, the night when they'd be closest together, forming a tight triangle.

There was still wind to deal with so I changed position a few times to minimize it. I could only use one camera because I had loaned my daughter one of my quick release plates the day before and it was still on her camera back home. There wasn't a lot of light and I was shooting with a 2X teleconverter on my 70-200mm lens at close to 310mm, so my aperture was limited to f/8, forcing me to bump up the ISO to minimize shutter speed in that wind. Fortunately I worked out all the trade-offs in time to capture about four hundred frames, enough to create this time-lapse video. 

Here's how my four days of effort to capture this event turned out:

May 24 from Lake Tahoe

May 25 from Mono Lake

May 26 from Monitor Pass

May 27 from Lake Tahoe

Moon Jupiter Conjunction

Moon-Jupiter Conjunction, January 2013 (1000mm, 1080p, 15fps) from Jeff Sullivan on Vimeo.

I looked outside the other night and saw a bright object next to the moon.  Sky at Night Magazine had predicted that there would be a Moon and Jupiter conjunction on January 22, and I realized that it was about 6 am Uninversal Time on the 22nd.  I've taken photos of Jupiter at 400mm before, and those images can crop down to an effective 1000mm or so with no loss of resolution, so I set my camera outside to fire off a few hundred frames.

I had the intervalometer set to capture one frame every 3 seconds, and at that focal length and crop Jupiter only stays in a 16 x 9 HD-shaped frame for 210 shots, so I get either 7 seconds at 30 frames per second or 14 seconds at 15 frames per seconds.  The movement seemed a little less jerky at the slower frame rate, so that's what I've uploaded.  The movement could probably be smoothed out by taking the 30fps version and using software to simulate slow motion and inserting intermediate frames which track the movement of the moon and Jupiter... some day when I have all the time in the world, and the ultimate post-processing suite to go with it!

Astronomical Events Coming in March 2012

Mono Lake Moonrise (Re-edit), originally uploaded by Jeffrey Sullivan.

To get the best possible results with my astrophotography, I try to plan ahead to shoot as many astronomical events as I can. Here are some of the opportunities you'll have in the next month:

March 3/4: Mars at Opposition.  Mars will be as close as it gets to the earth, and will rise in the evening as the sun sets.
March 5: Mercury may be visible shortly after the sun sets through March 12, but on March 5 it reaches it maximum distance from the sun.
March 7: The nearly-full moon will rise just before sunset. Mars will rise right behind the moon in the evening sky.
March 8: Full moon.
March 9: The nearly-full moon will set just after sunrise.
March 10 - 20: Venus and Jupiter Conjunction
March 12: Arguably the best day of the Venus - Jupiter conjunction, as Jupiter will be just above Venus.
March 21: Thin crescent moon rises shortly before sunrise.
March 22: New Moon. March 21-24 will be good nights for star trail photography!
March 24: Thin crescent moon sets shortly before sunset.
March 24-25: Conjunction of Venus, Jupiter and the crescent moon.

I'll be out shooting with 25-30 of my photographer friends in Anza Borrego State Park and Death Valley National Park in the March 2-10 timeframe, and soon I'll be announcing photowalks for April, May and June.  The best place to catch my announcements will be on Google+:
http://www.Gplus.to/JeffSullivan