Venus-Jupiter conjunction progress

Jim R 6 Comments

I started imaging the evening pair of planets on 19 February when they were still quite far apart. My camera is a Canon Powershot SX60HS with a powerful zoom. It was mounted on a tripod. Settings of ISO 200, 0.5 sec, infinity focus, 2 sec delay timer, and medium zoom were saved for future exposures over the next days of the conjunction. I tried to time exposures between 6:30 and 6:45 pm. Lengthening daylight and weather conditions were challenges. Our region of the mid-United States is especially prone to clouds and wind this time of year. I felt lucky to get six images over twelve days.

Pixelmator Pro was used to layer the images and add text notations. I aligned each exposure on Jupiter as the frame of reference. Both planets moved from night to night. Jupiter moved down to toward the Sun a small amount each day. Venus moved up away from the Sun a greater distance each day. Jupiter was 8x farther away. Venus is rounding the curve of orbit, increasing elongation from the Sun, and catching up to Earth over the next months. It moved from the bottom toward the top of this composite image.

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Venus-Jupiter Daylight view | 1 Mar 2023

Jim R 12 Comments

Like many others, I’ve been following the evening views of Jupiter and Venus. It has been a challenge to get clear skies in order to see their progress as they neared each other. Today started foggy. That moved out leaving clear skies. I set up my 102 mm Meade refractor on the go-to mount and asked it to find Venus. There it was, glowing bright in the eyepiece, with the much dimmer disc of Jupiter to the lower left. It was a rare sight. I’ve seen both of these planets separately several times before in the daytime with my naked eye, binoculars, and telescope. It is a fun challenge. This was special to see them both in the same view of the eyepiece.

I had an eyepiece camera mounted on the telescope part of the time hoping to get an image with it. I couldn’t find them. So, as a last resort, I held my phone up to the eyepiece as steadily as I could and took 3 images. Maybe one of them would be ok. To my surprise, one of them came out well. I adjusted the image a bit and added notations.

Hand-held phone camera | ISO 400 | 1/5100 sec

Astro-Image NGC 1433 | Horologium Seyfert

Jim R 15 Comments

Followers of this blog will note the many Astro-Images I’ve posted over the years. I enjoy combining greyscale images exposed with red, green, and blue filters by the Hubble Space Telescope and making a color version of the subject. Instruction about my technique can be found at this earlier post.

Several weeks ago, I used that technique to colorize the galaxy NGC 1433 in the southern constellation Horologium. It was first observed in 1826 by Scottish astronomer James Dunlop. It is 46 million light-years from Earth and now classified as a Seyfert galaxy with an active galactic nucleus displaying intense star formation. Here is my color version. A better version from a NASA site can be seen here. Star forming occurs in the outer light blue ring. Much more intense star forming occurs in the central nucleus. The dark regions are dust lanes. All images of the galaxy in this post are oriented the same for ease of comparison.

Hubble & NASA: Jim Ruebush
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Chinese Spy Balloon

Jim R 13 Comments

The upper air winds have taken the spy balloon from Montana through the midwest and across the Carolinas. It has caused a lot of stir in the news. My brother lives near the border of North and South Carolina. This morning he and his wife watched it glide over. They managed to get a couple of pictures. I wonder if it got pictures of them.

Venus, Saturn, and the Moon

Jim R 4 Comments

The planets Venus and Saturn were unusually close together right after sunset on 22 Jan. The clear skies I hoped for didn’t happen. They were to be still quite close together on 23 Jan. The skies were reasonably cleared during the late afternoon.

We ate some dinner early at sunset. The thin crescent Moon was clearly visible. We drove a few blocks to a spot with a view to the southwest and took a few photos. We could see the Moon and Venus, but Saturn was not quite visible. Clouds were moving in again. We went home and finished our dinner. Weather here can change quickly. You have to be ready to act.

Later, I looked at the images and was able to spot Saturn as a faint dot of light. I enhanced that part of the image to make it more visible.