Moon, Venus and Jupiter - 3 (2012)
On the morning of 2012 July 15 (MST), the crescent Moon (illuminated by earthshine) and the planets Venus and Jupiter appeared in a beautiful conjunction in the constellation Taurus. Although quite a bit of cloud was present, it was still possible to image the celestial scene.
Venus appears below the Moon and Jupiter is too the right.To the lower right of Venus is Aldebaran the brightest star in Taurus and one of the 50 Brightest Star in the sky. Also visible near Aldebaran is the V-shaped Hyades star cluster.
For more images of interesting planetary alignments, see Conjunctions Gallery. An almanac of other major sky happenings for each year can be found at Calendar of Astronomical Events.
Technical Details
- Object: Moon, Venus and Jupiter - 3 (2012)
- Date/Time: 2012 July 15 at 11:15 UTC
- Location: Bifrost Astronomical Observatory, Portal, AZ
- Mount: Losmandy G-11 German Equatorial Mount
- Lens: Nikkor 18-105 VR at 80 mm
- Camera: Nikon D90
- Exposure: 1/8 to 8s, f/4.8, ISO 800
- File Name: MoonVenus12-HDR01w.jpg
- Processing (Photomatix Pro): 7 Exposures combined into HDR (High Dynamic Range) image
- Processing (Photoshop CS6): Curves
- Original Image Size: 2848 x 4288 pixels (12.2 MP); 9.5" x 14.3" @ 300 dpi
- Rights: Copyright 2012 by Fred Espenak. All Rights Reserved. See: Image Licensing.