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[Centaur]

Some pretty alignments will soon occur between the waxing crescent Moon and the two inferior planets. That should present us with fine viewing and photographic opportunities.

The Moon will conjunct Mercury and Venus during the evenings of May 17th and 19th respectively. Mercury on the 17th will serve as a guidepost for New Moon spotters. That evening at 20:46 CDT the Moon aged 30:19 hrs will pass 2.5° north of Mercury as viewed from northwest suburban Chicago. On the 19th at 22:06 CDT Diana's Bow (3-day-old Moon) will pass only 58 arcminutes north of brilliant Venus for observers at that same location. The center-to-center angular separations will vary slightly across North America.

I've created one preview graphic for the Mercury event and two for Venus. They can be seen at: www.curtrenz.com/astronomical.html

Descriptions and photos of the conjunctions would be welcome additions to this thread.

[Centaur]

Here's the photo I shot this evening of the Moon and Mercury. It was taken from Arlington Heights, Illinois on 2007 MAY 17 at 21:09 CDT with the Moon aged 30:42 hrs.

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Curt,

Your first image submission I believe?

That is a nice framed shot of the conjunction with the steeple at the foreground.

What did you use to take the shot, and what settings?

Thanks for sharing.

[Centaur]

admin said:

Your first image submission I believe?

That is a nice framed shot of the conjunction with the steeple at the foreground.

What did you use to take the shot, and what settings?

If you check the Tranquilty Base forum, Joe, you'll see some earlier pictures of mine.

Glad you enjoyed the shot.

I took it with my Sony Cyber-shot DSC-F717. Manual settings: ISO 100, 1.6 sec, F2.4, 5x telephoto, focus on infinity. The original was 2560x1920. I compressed it to 40% of the original (1024x768) then cropped it to 800x600. No other "darkroom" procedures were applied.

You'll have another opportunity on Saturday when the Moon will appear to pass even closer by Venus. Good Luck.