They’re not as close as they were two nights ago, but I managed to frame them with a more interesting foreground.
Tag: Mercury
Venus and Mercury Spotted!
Venus and Mercury close together after last night’s sunset.
I lucked out in that…
- I remembered they were going to be visible when I got to the store on the way home.
- The parking lot was both wide and slightly uphill from the western side of the street, giving me a clear view.
- The sky had just darkened enough to see both.
- The clouds were just wispy enough not to block them.
As it is, I still had to crop out a street light and its lens flare to get this photo, or I would have framed it better.
But hey, it’s not often you get to see Mercury from a city at all, never mind right next to another planet!
Venus and Mercury, Sitting in a Tree
I’ve been watching Venus and Mercury move toward and away from each other over the past week and a half as I leave the office, when I’ve had a clear view anyway. Tonight I caught a different view of the pair of planets, framed by the almost-bare branches of a tree.
Venus and Mercury Above the Trees (UPDATED 2x)
I walked out of the office building this evening and just stopped. There, framed by the treetops along the street and the awning and wall of the next building over, was clearly Venus, which I hadn’t seen in months (since the last time it was visible in the evening), and below it a pinprick that, unless I’m mistaken, was Mercury (which I’ve only ever seen on a handful of occasions). It’s certainly in the right place, and I waited to see if either light would move (there’s an airport literally across the street) before deciding that they were both planets.
A few minutes earlier, Mercury would have been too faint. A few minutes later, it would have been below the trees. Not long after that, Venus would have been too low to see as well.
Update! The next two nights were too cloudy to see anything, but Friday evening I was able to spot them again! You can really see how much Mercury has moved relative to Venus in just three days.
Update 2! And here’s the view the following Tuesday, one week after the first shot. I had to move to the left a few feet since they were behind the building now, which is why the light pole is visible this time. In retrospect, I wish I’d snapped it in all three shots, because that way I’d be able to make sure I was presenting them all at the same zoom level. I’ve been eyeballing it, and I think it’s close enough to get the idea across.
Planetary Triangle
Last night I had a perfect view of the conjunction of Jupiter, Venus and Mercury, but only a phone. Tonight I had a more obstructed view, but I think the power lines ended up making it a bit more interesting than a plain photo with this camera would have been.
It’s also astonishing how quickly Mercury moves. No wonder they named it after the god of speed.
Mercurial View
I’m 90% certain that I managed to (barely) spot Mercury below and to the left of Venus from the grocery store parking lot just after sunset. Appropriately enough, the one other time I think I spotted Mercury, it was also from a grocery store parking lot.
It was like trying to spot one slightly brighter pixel on a high-resolution display in the middle of a gradient. Faint enough that if I hadn’t seen it in the same place each time I looked, I would have dismissed it as something in my eye, or part of an after-image. I couldn’t really see much more than the fact that there was something there where Google Sky Map said Mercury should be.
It’s really neat that Jupiter and Venus sort of bracketed the twilight sky!
Venus and Mercury!?
At the age of 34, I’ve finally seen the planet Mercury.* It’s notoriously difficult to spot, but when I read that it was going to be very close to Venus for the next few days, I had to try.
As it turns out, I was able to see it from a local grocery store parking lot. I left the car just as Venus was becoming visible, concerned by the clouds starting to drift past, and left the store to a clear twilight sky and a “star” below and to the right of Venus…exactly where Mercury should be!
*Of course I’ve seen photos, but I’d never seen the planet directly with my own eyes — or if I have, I didn’t recognize it.