Monday 5 March 2012

Two planets and a moon

Many people from the north to the south west, apparently, saw a bright meteor streaking across the sky on Saturday night. This reminds me that, cycling home from work a couple of weeks ago, I was struck by the brightness in the night sky of two planets.


I stopped to take a photo, resting the camera on a fence post. The moon always looks much bigger to the eye than it appears on my photos - I suppose that's because there is nothing on a human scale in the blackness to compare it with.

I've just looked up which planets they are: Jupiter (top left) and Venus. Not that they look anything more than a couple of bright dots on my photo! According to this website Jupiter and Venus are gradually moving closer together (as observed from Earth), being at their closest on 13th March.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great photo - it's not easy to photograph the night sky.

Sue, nb Indigo Dream

Halfie said...

Thanks Sue. The hardest part was getting my cheap'n'cheerful compact (no manual focus) to focus on infinity. I pointed at some trees near the horizon, half pressed the button so it would hold its settings, then aimed up and fired. Oh - I'd also put the shutter release on a 2-second timer to give me a fighting chance of holding it still on the post.

ditchcrawler said...

I have that problem with my camera, its predecessor worked well.

Have you looked at http://www.heavens-above.com/