Crescent Moon and Jupiter Conjunction, 23rd March 2009
This morning there was a beautiful conjunction featuring the waning Crescent Moon and Jupiter, less than 2° away.
Looking through the eyepiece at Jupiter, she appeared to have an extra moon in an odd position – in fact it was a field star, HIP105256. The Galilean Moons were close by – Io was right next to Jupiter, with Europa and Callisto a little further away. Ganymede was in transit but was not observed.
I was able to fit the pairing in the field of view of my Canon 350D when attached at prime focus to my Saxon ED80, so I snapped off a few images before heading to work. Unfortunately I didn’t nail the focus and didn’t notice until I’d finished.
Please click the image to see the full-size.
Moon, Jupiter and Stars Conjunction. Click image for full-size.
While viewing the images on the train, I noticed that the star 29Cap was egressing from being occulted by the Moon. So I combined 8 frames into an animation showing the motion of the Moon through the stars.
Please read on to see the animation and to read more about the image.
The animation below consists of 8 frames taken over a period of about 4 minutes. The exposure times were 1.5 s each at ISO400, and the frames are aligned on the Moon.
It’s interesting to see 29Cap come out from behind the Moon, and also to see Jupiter’s relative motion compared to the Moon.
Please click the image to download the 1.1mb animation.
29Cap egressing from behind the Moon. Click for animation.
Did you see it this morning? I’d love to hear from you if you saw the conjunction this morning, and/or took any photos of it.
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posted in Astrophotography | 4 Comments
My name is Mike Salway and I'm an amateur astronomer and photographer. I'm the co-founder of 
It was interesting seeing this picture. I was immediately reminded of a similar gathering of Jupiter, Venus, and Luna in early December. http://dsc.discovery.com/space/slideshows/venus-jupiter-moon/planet-conjunction-photos.html
I wish I could have seen this conjunction, or even just Jupiter now, but I’ve had no luck in finding a good clear horizon for it around here. I look forward to your images until it is high enough for me!
Thanks for your comment, Tavi. Usually for events that require a nice horizon, I have to travel away from home too. Luckily this one was just high enough for me to capture at home.
Cheers and thanks.
‘We’ sure did see it Mike, only ‘We’ were near Sutton, north of Canberra on the southern limit line to observe the graze of 29Cap. ‘We’ = the Canberra chapter of Team Occultation. Go here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aODM6R5s7So to see the vid.
Thanks for sharing your image
Regards
DaveGault
That’s a great video, Dave! I would love to capture something like this one day.
Thanks for commenting.