A Rare Event

If you are lucky enough to be up early in the morning this week then you could be in for a treat. Five planets are lined up in the morning sky along with the moon. Last night the dog needed to go out during this time so I grabbed my camera and made a couple of photos. Here you can see the moon pretty prominently in the sky with Jupiter in the upper right corner and Mars just off to the left from the moon. For the next couple of mornings this show should get even better with the peak on June 24th. If you are up and bored just take a look to the southeast. This is a little easier to spot because the moon sits prominently in the middle.

Astro Fun

In the summer I tend to have more fun with photos of the sky. I don’t make astro photos too often though so it might be my weakest tool in my bag. For some reason here Mars kept showing up as a heart. I even took the photo out of focus completely, and it was just a bit bigger of a heart. For the next couple of mornings I will play around a little more with this event to see if I can get a composition that shows all five planets in one frame. Jupiter is a little streaky here because of my focal length and shutter speed. I plan on going a bit wider as the week goes on to avoid this problem. Even if you don’t make a photo it is a pretty cool event to just see with your eyes.