Venus, Moon, Gate

Another DSLR shot to make me feel like I am still imaging the skies!  Last Friday was (another) cloudy day so I didn't expect to see the conjunction at all but went outside at dusk and was surprised to see we caught a break.  The Western sky was clear so I quickly ran in to grab the camera.  Ran off a few quick shots with the 24mm lens.  Impossible to capture Mars along with Venus and Moon without resorting to combining images with different exposures but I noticed a nice composition with the Gate to our little courtyard.  So my conjunction substitutes Mars for the Gate.

Venus, Moon, Gate ... click here to flickr

Not much deep sky work happening here in North Central New Mexico.  I blame the near persistent cloud cover.   To those that image the sky (at least deep sky) the presence of *any* clouds is reason enough to close up shop.  Many people will exclaim ... but it was so clear last night!  Well, being able to see some stars, even a lot of stars doesn't quite cut it.  Looks like I will need to adapt to trying to image "in between" on those nights of intermittent clouds.  Yes I was spoiled by the days or weeks long periods of clear cloudless skies in the North California Bay Area.  Of course they are also suffering a severe drought ...  On balance I guess I'll learn to deal with the clouds!

Taken in Corrales New Mexico, February 20, 2015

Canon T2i (stock), Canon 24mm f/2.8L  @ f/1.6,  1/8sec exposure, ISO 400 

Raw image cropped and mangled Lightroom

Goodbye Venus ... till Tuesday

After yesterday's successful capture of the crescent Venus I decided to try one last time.  Planetarium software shows Venus about 3.75 degrees away from the Sun this morning - and should be safe to image.    After making absolutely sure the sun was outside of the frame I removed the Baader filter and snapped off a sequence of exposures.  The keeper was at 1/3200sec ... a little faster than yesterday.

Goodbye Venus ... see you in silhouette on Tuesday

You can readily see the large gradient from being so near the Sun.  If there were a second frame adjacent on the right side the Sun would be in about the middle.  I think we can safely say that Venus is lost in the glare now ... we'll have to wait until Tuesday when she does her once a century glide across the solar disk.


Taken in my backyard in San Jose, CA Jun 3, 2012, 10:51am PST
Canon T2i (stock), Canon EF 200mm f/2.8L + Extender EF 2X III @ f8
AP900 mount
1/3200 sec exposure @ ISO100
post-processed in Lightroom 4 and PS5