Mercury last night, along with Venus and Jupiter

[William Bottaci]

Mercury is now rising rapidly in the west, favourably inclined at this time of year, but visible for just a few weeks. Seen and imaged on the 29th, 31st May, 2nd and 8th June. There is a low gap in the trees to the northwest at Kenley which makes observation favourable. Attached is an image from last night, this time from the viewpoint at Addington Hills off Shirley Hills Road (I know these names are contradictory, I took them straight off Google Maps). I was accompanied by fellow member Mahmood who kindly kept me company and shared the observation.

We took 132 images - to ensure at least a few will come out well - from the first at 9:58 pm to the last at 10:51 pm when several minutes after that it would be lost behind low cloud. Cropped from the original. If viewing on a mobile you'll definitely need to zoom in; computer or tablet will be okay.

The attached was taken at 10:34 pm (sunset was 9:14 pm) and Mercury was visible from the first image, but it took a few minutes before it was visible to the naked eye as the sky was too light. Venus is the brighter of the two planets to the upper left, just crossing each other with Venus rising and Jupiter heading behind the sun. So where is Mercury in the image? On the right there are twin cranes with red lights above the horizon, go upwards from the leftmost one about a third above the horizon.

Stars Castor and Pollux of the constellation Gemini are visible when I aimed higher, and at least one original image shows at least 20 definite stars; not bad at 1 second, ISO 200, f/5.6, 50 mm, and close to a bright horizon. The attached shows 6 stars, all in the top area.
William

STOP PRESS: Forecasts for tonight are far better than last night; I'll be going up to the viewpoint at Addington Hills now, (road entrance to the Royal Garden Chinese Garden, plenty of free parking at the grounds) being there to catch the sunset and staying for more of the planets.

=CanR7_093940_M-160.jpg (235K)=

[drja...@aol.com]

Very good William.  An interesting but not distracting background.  Mercury is easily visible on my phone in landscape and full screen, following your directions about where to look in the frame.  Did you try any higher ISO shots to capture more stars?

James 

Sent from AOL on Android

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