Conjunctions

Conjunction of Mercury and Venus

MercuryandVenus-John-Howarth

Image by John Howarth Image taken through glass in upstairs window. (Window will open but not in the right direction. Telephone wires are a nuisance too, just in wrong place..or perhaps Mercury’s in the wrong place!)

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Image by Jim Burchell – no details provided

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Image by Jim Burchell Image of Venus and Mercury taken this evening (2020,05/19) at Barn End Lane Dartford

Conjunction of Venus and the Pleiades

Image by Honor Wheeler of the Moon and Pleiades imaged on the 3rd of April 2020 @ 20:08UT taken with her Canon 700D and a 300mm lens – ISO1600, f6.3, exp 2sec.

HW-conjunction-2020-04-03

Imaged by Honor Wheeler on the 3rd of April 2020 @ 20:08UT taken with her Canon 700D and a 300mm lens – ISO1600, f6.3, exp 2sec.

venusandM45KevinLangford

Venus & Pleiades Canon 750D, Sigma F2/135mm Lens, CLS filter. Skywatcher Adventurer Tracking mount. 1hr of exposures. Bexley, Kent. © Kevin Langford

The Pleiades, Mars and the California Nebula

In April 2019 Mars was close to M45 (the Pleiades) and NGC 1499 and this coincided with the Kelling Heath Star Party. Unfortunately at this time of year Taurus is very low, setting in the late evening making this a difficult object to image, my attempts to stack and then process with Deep Sky Stacker were hopeless, so I turned to Astro Pixel Processor (using a 30 day free trial) which has a very easy to use light pollution killer, this allowed me to remove the gradient that resulted from the very low elevation and trees that crept into the field.

Total exposure is 84 minutes, from 30s subs. Tracking was achieved with an iOptron Star tracker, camera was a Canon 600D with a full spectrum mod and a CLSCCD clip-in filter.

Occultation of the Beehive by the Moon

On Saturday 13th April I’d hoped to go to the Observatory and image the occultation of the Beehive cluster by the Moon but alas Diane and I had forgotten that we were taking part in a local RSPB quiz. We’ve taken part on a number of other occasions with fellow member Deborah and David, her husband, who are also keen bird watchers, so we had said yes to this quiz before we knew about the events clashing.
 
The skies were still clear after the quiz so we headed to the observatory, we got to the Pavilion at about 22:30BST (21:30UT) to find that no one else was using it. We imaged the Moon with the Beehive cluster from the patio then imaged some lunar craters and took a tour around the sky with the 16″. The skies remained clear until 02:10BST at which time Diane and I packed up and went home.

Venus and a Crescent Moon

Images by Honor Wheeler

20181204_7574VenusMoonConjunctionHW

Conjunction between the Crescent Moon and Venus in the morning sky on 4th December 2018

Image by Honor Wheeler

Images by Kevin Langford

Moon and Venus 07 am on 4-12-2018KL

Conjunction of the Moon and Venus on 7am on 4th December 2018

Image by Kevin Langford

All images are copyright. Permission must be sought to from the image owner to the use of any of these images.