Planets Update

Mercury is gone from the evening sky, but Venus is impressive.

 

In the pre-dawn sky, Mars has been "zooming" to the East and is closing in on Saturn. They will be even closer on Monday-ish.

 

Here is a shot from 05:45 this morning. The lines point to Saturn, on the left. Mars, in the middle, and on the right is where Mars was 10 days ago, right between the Lagoon Nebula and the Triffid Nebula. I have a picture of that too, but it is grainy.

 

On this shot, I drew in the Teapot of Sagittarius. To the right of the spout, open cluster M7 is quite visible with fainter M6 to its upper right.

Moon, Venus, Mercury

The Moon, Venus, and Mercury made a nice horizontal line in the evening sky tonight

 If you live west of Bonaire, which is most of N. America, you might still be able to run outside and see this.

Moon and Planets Sunday Morning

Happy daylight savings time to those of you in the USA.  Bonaire time is now the same as the time on the East Coast.  whoo whoo

If any of you are early-birds and see this post while it is still dark out Sunday morning, here is what the moon and planets look like before dawn

 

From lower left to upper right, you can see the Moon, Saturn, Mars, and Jupiter. You can also see the fishhook shape of Scorpius and the teapot of Sagittarius, sitting below the line of planets.

 

 

Three Morning Planets

While Mercury and Venus grace the early evening skies, there are three bright planets lined up in the pre-dawn hours.  This week, the moon is moving among the planets.


I shot a picture of the moon and planets lurking between the clouds this morning at 6:15. (March 8)  I've included lines to show where the planets are. The sky is light enough around 6am, that only the planets are visible. From left to right, the planets are Saturn, Mars and Jupiter


I'm also including three screen grabs from Stellarium that show where the moon was compared to the planets this morning, and where it will be Friday morning and Saturday morning. So if you have clear skies, you can go out before dawn and use the moon to lead you to three planets. You'll no doubt want to view these images at full size to be able to spot the planets.

Full Moon Rise

The moon was full back on Thursday, and the sky was pretty clear. I think the rainy season might be finally ending. So I zoomed down south to see if I could do a moonrise time-lapse.

 

I didn't get the shots I wanted, but it was close enough to whet my appetite. The photo shows the moon right behind the lighthouse keeper's house, and the video clip shows the moon rising.

 

The moon rose just a few minutes before the sun set. I saw the best green flash I've seen in years in the West, while my camera was merrily snapping away in the East.

 

 

Venus and Mercury

We've been watching Venus and Mercury in the west, right after sunset.


Tonight the two planets are at their closest together configuration.

The cropped photo shows the planets better. Once you know where to look, you'll probably be able to spot them in the full photo.

March 7 update:  Mercury has now moved from the lower right of Venus to the upper right of Venus