Planets

On this night the Moon and Saturn were in what is called a “Conjunction” or close approach – they appeared to be near to each other in the night sky even though they are in reality separated by millions of miles. At the time of this photo the angular separation was approximately 37.5 arc-minutes.
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An Occultation is when one celestial body passes in front of another celestial body blocking it from view. In this case the Moon was passing in front of Mars and causing it to disappear for 60 to 90 minutes (depending on your location on the earth) on the evening of December 7, 2022. This photo was taken just moments after Mars emerged from behind the Moon.
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Photo of the naked-eye planets aligned in the sky in the order of their distance from the SUN [Mercury, Venus, Earth (the moon is acting as a place holder for the earth) Mars, Jupiter and Saturn]. This type of ordered alignment probably will not occur again in our lifetimes.
Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system. This photo was taken using my C9.25 telescope and a 2.5x Televue Powermate.
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Jupiter and the “Great Red Spot”. The black dot on the face of Jupiter is the shadow cast by its moon Ganymede shining just to the right of the planet. The image is somewhat blurry and has a reddish tint due to smoke in the atmosphere from wildfires in California and Colorado.
Shadow from Jupiter’s moon Io (off frame on the right) on the surface of Jupiter.
This is a somewhat unusual photo. While finishing up my observing later on the evening of 8-14-20 I decided to take a quick look at Jupiter before packing up for the night. It so happened that I stumbled on a double shadow transit of Io and Ganymede on the surface of Jupiter. Realizing that I didn’t have the time to reconfigure the scope and camera for a higher powered view before the event ended, I viewed it utilizing the digital magnification feature of my cameras viewfinder. Unfortunately the camera can’t record this magnified viewfinder image so I grabbed one of my other cameras to snap a picture of the rear viewscreen of the camera that was attached to the back of the scope. The result turned out surprisingly well with both shadows showing up along with the Great Red Spot (GRS). I did some mild processing on the image to smooth out some of the pixilation from the screen image, increased the contrast a bit and added the labels.
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Jupiter and its four Brightest moons (in order of size) – Ganymede, Callisto, Io, and Europa. These moons are known as “The Galilean Moons” since they were first observed by Galileo Galilei using a primitive telescope in the year 1610.
The second largest planet Saturn with its spectacular ring system.
In this long exposure photo the image of Saturn is deliberately over-exposed to bring out the fainter images of some of Saturn’s Moons. A graphic image showing Saturn’s actual size and orientation has been inserted into the image. Titan is the largest of Saturn’s 53 named moons and is larger than the Planet Mercury while the smallest of its moons are the size of small asteroids (~20 miles in diameter).
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Photos of Mars – Each year the Earth and Mars approach one another as they orbit the Sun, but since their orbits are elliptical rather than circular, the minimum distance that separates the two planets varies from year to year. On October 6, 2020 Mars approached to within 38.6 million miles and was brighter than every other celestial body as seen from Earth except for the Moon. Mars won’t be this close to the Earth again until the year 2035. On the Right are maps identifying the major surface features seen in the corresponding photos. The South Polar Ice Cap can be seen on the lower right side of the planet.
During Mars’ closest approach to earth in 2018 much of the planets surface was obscured by a planet wide dust storm. A bit of surface darkening is visible in the lower part of the planet as well as the south polar ice cap.
Uranus (the third largest Planet) and four of its 27 moons.
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A Photo of the “The Great Christmas Conjunction” of Jupiter and Saturn in 2020. This photo was taken using a 45mm lens with a 2 second exposure. Even using this modest equipment a close examination of the photo reveals two of Jupiter’s moons (Callisto and Ganymede) and Titan, the largest moon of Saturn. Also several of the brightest stars and their magnitudes are labeled (HD numbers). Remember that the larger the magnitude the dimer the star.
On this night the Moon and Jupiter were in what is called a “Conjunction” – they appeared to be near to each other in the night sky even though they are separated by millions of miles. This photo shows just how large Jupiter is even though it is so distant. It’s four largest moons are clearly visible if you zoom in (they are clearly visible in the inset photo). The photo was taken using a digital camera and a 150mm zoom-lens mounted on a tripod.
A conjunction of Jupiter and a crescent Venus in the night sky.  Since Venus is closer to the Sun than earth it (and Mercury) exhibit “phases” similar to the phases of the moon when viewed from earth. Planets that have orbits larger than Earth’s orbit such as Jupiter are always fully illuminated.
Mercury and Venus in the early evening.  Since they both have orbits that are close to the sun they can only be viewed either shortly before sunrise or shortly after sunset.
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Venus Setting behind the mountains in Vail Colorado.  The “Twin” Stars of the constellation Gemini – Castor and Pollux – shine above.
An Occultation is when one celestial body passes in front of another celestial body. In this case the Moon was passing in front of Venus and causing it to disappear from view for 60 to 90 minutes (depending on your location on the earth) in the early morning hours of April 22 2009. This photo was taken just moments before the beginning of the occultation and the crescent shape of Venus is clearly visible. (Sony DSC-5 digital camera mounted on a tripod).
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Jupiter, Saturn and Venus aligned along the ecliptic with the Moon shining below.
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