With rainstorms for the first half of the week, I figured the sky would be clouded over, and I completely forgot about the conjunction of Venus and Jupiter tonight.
Despite wind, rain and even hail today, it cleared up this afternoon. I happened to run out for groceries and looked up from the parking lot to see a blue sky with Venus and Jupiter right next to each other!
I snapped a quick shot with my phone. And then got out the good camera and tripod when I got home.
And…I think I may have caught some of Jupiter’s moons?!?
The brighter planet to the right is Venus. The almost-as-bright one to the left is Jupiter. Venus shows diffraction rays, but Jupiter doesn’t…but those dots lined up on one side of it? They’re in the right location to be Callisto, Ganymede and (possibly) Io!
I’ve got to remember to use the telephoto after getting the wide shot the next time I’m taking night sky photos with planets. Just in case.
You got better pictures than I did, not surprisingly! Lovely!
I love it! Thanks for sharing your pics, I was just looking at them a while ago
The actual distance between Jupiter and Venus is “only” 416 million miles. And I just looked at the pics of the convergence last night. I got three dots off Jupiter, too! I thought it was an artifact from the chips on the lens I inflicted by banging the camera against a rock while climbing some hill without the lens cap on.
@kelsonv Yes, those dots are some of Jupiter’s moons.