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Mars, Venus, Moon Conjuction on Tuesday

posted by mrpg on Tuesday January 31 2017, @09:48AM   Printer-friendly
from the the-cosmic-ballet-goes-on dept.

takyon informs us of a conjunction:

You won't have to get out your telescopes to see Mars, Venus and the moon put on a show, Jan. 31.

The three celestial objects will be exceptionally close to each other on Tuesday night in a rare celestial treat called a conjunction.

[...] Kief says the best time to watch the conjunction is after sunset, starting at 8 p.m. PT. [Editor's Note: UTC-8]

He says to identify Venus, look for the glowing object that has a red and yellow tinge to it. Venus will shine slightly brighter than Mars, since it's closer to the Earth. Mars has an orange and red tinge to it.

And remember, if the celestial object you're looking at twinkles, it's probably not a planet.

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  • (Score: 1) by aim on Wednesday February 01 2017, @09:04PM

    by aim (6322) on Wednesday February 01 2017, @09:04PM (#461795)

    Thank you for this article. It forewarned me just in time about the conjunction.

    As I had plans for the evening, I just took along my tripod and camera, and around 18:30 GMT+1 went out to check on the weather - luckily, no clouds in the way. I could picture our three cosmic neighbors nicely, with (depending on the chosen lens, parts of) a big satellite antenna in the foreground. Here, the three were at distances so that with the telezoom at 100mm (on APS-C) I had them all nicely covered, with the 18-55mm I could choose to have the entire sat antenna in the frame. Had I waited longer, I'd have missed the event, as clouds did come up a bit later.

    Tip for other such events: take whatever filter off your lens, it will otherwise create reflections for the bright objects (here: crescent of the moon, Venus). Do use a tripod. Preferrably, use mirror lock. Also, go low-ISO for less noise. And be careful about focusing, never trust autofocus. Find something interesting in the foreground for context, some sort of landmark.