Moon and Venus

[I_Fly]

Last week there was an evening when the moon, Venus, Mars and Saturn (I think it was) were all lined up and visible right before/after sunset. I wasn't able to see the lower two, but had a pretty good view of the moon and Venus. So I tried to get some shots of that, unfortunately my best long lense isn't all that good so I tried some not so wide shots and this was the best of the bunch.

It's obvious that I messed the exposure up a bit but it was cold and I was racing a quickly dying battery so I took what I could.

Trying this really makes me appreciate Speed's Astrophotography shots!

[Don Schaeffer]

Interesting photo on its own terms.

[Ballen Photo]

Well, The composition turned out nice. :thumbsup:
You did better that I did. I meant to try and shoot them together, but got waylaid as usual, and didn't even get one shot in. :mad2:
-Bruce

[Speed]

Last week there was an evening when the moon, Venus, Mars and Saturn (I think it was) were all lined up and visible right before/after sunset. I wasn't able to see the lower two, but had a pretty good view of the moon and Venus. So I tried to get some shots of that, unfortunately my best long lense isn't all that good so I tried some not so wide shots and this was the best of the bunch.

It's obvious that I messed the exposure up a bit but it was cold and I was racing a quickly dying battery so I took what I could.

Trying this really makes me appreciate Speed's Astrophotography shots!

The other bright planet was Jupiter, and the dimmer one was Mercury. This looks good to me my friend,so don't knock yourself or your abilities!

And thanks for the compliment! I just make it look easy. ;-)

I shot the conjunction as well. My post is here:

Conjunction Of Moon, Venus and Jupiter

Also, depending on how close to the horizon you can see, Jupiter and Mercury are still visible. Venus is getting higher in the sky, and Jupiter is getting lower. Here's a link to the current night sky:

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/obser.../36952754.html

[Ballen Photo]

What I meant to say when I mentioned I like the composition is that I like how you gave them perspective by including part of our planet in the shot.
-Bruce

[I_Fly]

Thanks Bruce. I took a bunch of shots with different compositions and settings. This one stood out from all the others. The "extreme" closeups just weren't very good because my long lense is very soft at 300mm. One of these days I'll have a decent tele lense!

Well, The composition turned out nice. :thumbsup:
You did better that I did. I meant to try and shoot them together, but got waylaid as usual, and didn't even get one shot in. :mad2:
-Bruce

[I_Fly]

The image in that article is almost exactly what I wanted to capture but didn't have time to find a clear area to see Mercury and Jupiter. All four objects were visible in a relatively close section of the sky for a very shot time.

Here's a link to the current night sky:

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/obser.../36952754.html